The sun came up, daubing the cliff with splotches of orange and purple and striking up scintillations in the beads of dew on the robots' backs. And still the tiresomely shouted veneration continued. Angus paced the ledge, stopping occasionally to stare into the impenetrable shadows of the cave. He checked his watch. Five hours to go--five hours, and then time would be meaningless for the rest of his life, with the ship destroyed. It was unlikely that rescue would come. The wrecked spacer's automatic distress signals had gone out in an ever-expanding sphere for a hundred years, and he and Drummond had been the only humans to hear them. Trade routes were pretty stable in this section of the Galaxy now. And it was hardly possible that, within the next ten or twenty years, one would be opened up that would intercept the SOS that had lured them here. He stood up and surveyed the robots. "RA-204." 204 reared erect. "Yes, Jackson?" "One of us is gone." "We know, O Supervisor." "Why did you let him get away?" "If he is not the True Jackson, it doesn't matter that he fled. If he is the Supervisor, he will return. Otherwise, why did he come here to us in the first place?" Another robot straightened. "We are ashamed, O Jackson, that we have failed the Divine Test and have not recognized our True Supervisor." Angus held up his arms for silence. "Once there was a cargo of robots. That was a hundred years ago. The ship was from Vega II. It developed trouble and crashed when it tried to land on this planet. There was--" "What's a year, O Supervisor?" asked 204. "A Vega-two, Jackson?" said 76 bewilderedly. "What's a planet?" another wanted to know. McIntosh leaned back hopelessly against the cliff. All of their memories and a good deal of their vocabularies had been lost. He could determine how much only through days of conversation. It would take weeks to learn their function, to rekindle a sense of duty sufficiently strong to draw their interest away from religion. Unless-- He drew resolutely erect. "Strip the converters! Pull the aft tube lining!" The robots looked uncomprehendingly at him. It was obvious they weren't trained for spacecraft maintenance. But it had to have something to do with mechanics. "A battle fleet is orbiting at one diameter! Arm all warheads on the double!" They stared helplessly at one another, then back at Angus. Not ordnancemen. "Pedestrian Strip Number Two is jammed! Crane crew, muster on the right!" The robots shifted uncertainly. Apparently they weren't civic maintenancemen, either. Defeated, Angus scanned their blank face plates. For a moment, it was almost as though he could discern expressions of confusion. Then he laughed at the thought that metal could accommodate a frown. Suddenly the robots shifted their gaze to the cave. Drummond, shoulders sagging dismally, walked out and squinted against the glare. Several of the robots started toward him.