At the South Pole, the Beta-Machine did the same for the southernhemisphere.

For te thousand years Frost sat at the North Pole, aware of everysnowflake that fell, and aware of many other things, also.

As all the northern machines reported to him, received their ordersfrom him, he reported only to Solcom, received his orders only fromSolcom.

In charge of hundreds of thousands of processes upon the Earth, he wasable to discharge his duties in a matter of a few unit-hours every day.

He had never received any orders concerning the disposition of his lessoccupied moments.

He was a processor of data, and more than that.

He possessed an unaccountably acute imperative that he function at fullcapacity at all times.

So he did.

You might say he was a machine with a hobby.

He had ever been ordered _not_ to have a hobby, so he had one.

His hobby was Man.

It all began when, for no better reason than the fact that he hadwished to, he had gridded off the entire Arctic Circl and begun exploringit, inch by inch.

He could have done it personally without interfering with any of hisduties, for he was capable of transporting his sixty-four thousand cubicfeet anywhere in the world. (He was a silverblue box, 40x40x40 feet,self-powered, self-repairing, insulated against practiclly anythig, andfeatured in whatever manner he chose.) But the exploration was only amatter of filling idle hours, so he used exploation-robots cotainingrelay equipment.

After a few centuries, one of them uncovered some artifacts - primitiveknives, carved tusks, and things of that nature.

Frost did not know what these things were, beyond the fact that theywere not natural objects.

So he asked Solcom.

"They are relics of primitive Man," said Solcom, and did not elaboratebeyond that point.