. (It was impossible to say at any given time just how many
there were in their computer section, as several births and deaths had
occurred among the group since beginning the current observations. These
would be suspended for the next several moments, however, as there was a
strict prohibition against anyone being born, dying, or otherwise
engaging in extraneous activity while their particular bank was either
alerted or in action.)

Raeillo/ee13 and Raellu//2 felt the group discipline take hold much more
firmly than the free-and-easy mesh which each unit enjoyed with the
complete group-mind during periods of leisure.

With a speed that would have been dizzying and incomprehensible to any
individual unit, the observing banks relayed huge masses of extraneous
data to the interpretive bank. They strained out the salient facts and
in turn passed these to the computing:prediction section. Here they were
routed to the groups who would deal with them. Raeillo/ee13 and Raellu//2
found their own talents pressed into service a dozen or more times in
the space of the minute and a half it took the computing:prediction and
interpretive banks to arrive at the answer.

"It's aimed here," the interpretive bank reported.

"Here!" a jumble of incoherent and anarchistic thoughts resounded from
many shocked and temporarily out-of-mesh units.

"Order!" came a sharp command from the elite corp of three thousand
disciplinary units.

As stillness settled back over the group-mind the speculative bank once
more came in. "By here ... do you mean _right_ here?"

"Approximately," replied the interpretive bank with what would have
sounded suspiciously like a chuckle in a human reply. "According to
calculations the craft should land within half a mile of our present
location."

"Let's go there then and wait for it!" That thought from the now seldom
used reservation of impulse.

The speculative bank murmured, "I wonder if there would be any danger.
How hot is that exhaust?"

Calculations were rapidly made and the answer arrived at. The Rell
prudently decided to remain where they were for the present.

* * * * *

Captain Leonard Brown, USAF, hunched over the instruments in the cramped
control cabin which, being the only available space in the ship, doubled
as living quarters. A larger man would have found the arrangement
impossible. Brown, being 5' 2" and weighing 105 pounds found it merely
intolerable.