by H. M. Hoover
The Counter had opened up the ship, and the people would not enter until they could share it with the Guardian—who seemed as much at home in their ship as they did. The Guardian sketched a crude outline of a house and with it set Toapa minds to dancing, and because of that they planned to build.
The Counter considered the over-all results of its testing and analyses of the sixty-three that morning. These people were not like the landing generation. During the years of the Counter's quiescence, they had become an altered strain. Toapa still, but made different by a new world. Like the Guardian, they were survivors. They planned to go on.
At the lowest point in its life, the Counter had chosen the Guardian. Looking back on that now, with twenty-nine percent energy capacity, the Counter thought perhaps that had been an act of desperation. But no mistake. The form was alien but the mind was somehow akin. Like the Counter and its people, the Guardian had lived in isolation and imposed innocence, enduring the present by memories of a secure past. And survived almost whole. Between Guardian and people there was now a common bond, although none knew it but the Counter. They would grow up together.
The Counter would watch and provide, not as much as it possibly could—but only as much as was good for its people, enough to allow them to become independent and self-sustaining and whole.
When these sixty-three were established, perhaps it
could call in the others, the lost and wild ones, make them sane again. Considering the greed of some aliens and the indignities suffered from others, and projecting over the months ahead, there would be a need for defense. Rover units could be disguised as rocks and placed at strategic points around the site. The Counter had never had to consider defense against living creatures; it was unsure what measures were needed. Possibly it had something to do with anger—although that seemed very inefficient. Prevention, more likely. There was so much to learn!
The pure mind that was the Counter considered the implications of that thought.
For the first time in three hundred years it sang to itself in the darkness.
