"It's all right," the child said again.

"You should have let it fall," the taller one insisted.

"No, I couldn't have done that; suppose we'd broken it?"

"Whatever it is. Well. What else are we doing this shift, Brother? Or is liberating a so-called environmental unit from its muffle the awful whole?"

"I don't think," the child said slowly, looking down at the voice-box in his hand. "That is—it may not be an environmental unit."

"You amaze me. What might it be, then?"

"I don't know," the child confessed. "I researched the serial number in the manual archives, back a dozen-dozen years. Either the number was mis-transcribed . . ."

"Or it's contraband," the white-haired one said.

The child looked down at the box in his hand. There were slider controls along the side, which he manipulated.

"This isn't a very good voder," he said. "We ought to find better."

"We? This was your idea, as I recall it. What if it is contraband, Val Con?"

The child frowned. "I don't know. It was exactly this—whatever it is, as you say—that my . . . hunch led me to. I haven't been led to harm by a hunch before."

"Unless you count getting thoroughly soaked and scratched bloody."

"Merlin was frightened. And he likes to get wet even less than you do."

The white-haired—brother?—sighed.

"If there's anything else this shift, let's get to it, shall we? I'd like to get some sleep and you—"

"I only need to make a data connection," the child said rapidly. "The work of a moment. You go, Brother; I can do this."

"Certainly you can. I, however, will remain, as witness. Also, if Father decides to space you, I had rather be at your side, for how I would explain it to Mother, I have no idea."

The child laughed, a merry sound, and picked up a length of cable.

He looked at it hungrily. Data. Information. Input.