Barnes roared with humorless laughter and waved his hand at a few men gaping toward a wall. "These characters capable of authority?" A few briefly swung eyes toward them, then back to the wall. "You people certainly are not ready," Jackson sighed. "Well, come along anyway, I'll show you Central Headquarters, such as it is now." They followed him into the street, gawking at an area robot control computer on the central island. It, too, had sections of broken plating with unattached wires crazily dangling. "Some kind of robot revolt?" Crawford whispered to Stern. "Looks like it could be," Stern agreed. "You can't adequately control thinking robots without area computers mediating their activities. But still--there's never been a robot revolt. Maybe something else peculiar explains--" Jackson who had been listening to music on an ear set turned around and said, "Of course you can control them without area computers. I mean, _we_ can. Anyway we don't need so many robots now." Barnes was about to register another vehement protest but his chief shook his head and whispered, "No use, there's something the matter with this one. I'll have him disciplined as soon as I talk to the top people." "Why are you turning this into a diplomatic prestige match?" Stern broke in, his voice even lower than the others. "There's something more important going on here. Didn't you notice what those types in Reception were gawking at?" "Us!" Barnes snorted. "No, there was some kind of smear of light flowing across the wall and every once in a while I thought I saw one or two words!" "For the last time, Stern," and this time Linder's voice was loud enough to echo from a building across the narrowing street, "last time, Stern, no more morbid talk--more morbid talk--." The words, coming back like a kind of self-mockery, threw him off his verbal stride and he fell silent, satisfying himself with the chance to glare at the semanticist. Who the devil needed a symbol specialist on a mission like this anyway? * * * * * They turned into a huge plaza where the echo phenomenon ceased, but the same sloppiness attracted their attention as had been the case at the spaceport. The pavement approach to Nodar's Central Headquarters was evenly laid out but, wherever repairs had been made, there was no sign of an attempt to cover the patches up and maintain pleasing visual symmetry. "There'll have to be a Glia Expeditionary Force," Linder muttered, unable to remain silent in the face of such deliberate disorganization. "They're suffering from some weird disease. They'll need all the help every planet can send."