Get ebook downloads in full at ebookmeta.

com

Theories of Integration The Integrals of Riemann

Lebesgue Henstock Kurzweil and McShane 2nd Edition
Douglas S Kurtz Charles W Swartz

https://ebookmeta.com/product/theories-of-integration-the-
integrals-of-riemann-lebesgue-henstock-kurzweil-and-
mcshane-2nd-edition-douglas-s-kurtz-charles-w-swartz/

OR CLICK BUTTON

DOWNLOAD NOW

Explore and download more ebook at https://ebookmeta.com

8291. 9789814368995-tp.indd 1 7/28/11 1:32 PM
 SERIES IN REAL ANALYSIS

Published

Vol. 1: Lectures on the Theory of Integration

R Henstock

Vol. 2: Lanzhou Lectures on Henstock Integration

Lee Peng Yee

Vol. 3: The Theory of the Denjoy Integral & Some Applications

V G Celidze & A G Dzvarseisvili
translated by P S Bullen

Vol. 4: Linear Functional Analysis

W Orlicz

Vol. 5: Generalized ODE

S Schwabik

Vol. 6: Uniqueness & Nonuniqueness Criteria in ODE

R P Agarwal & V Lakshmikantham

Vol. 7: Henstock–Kurzweil Integration: Its Relation to Topological Vector Spaces

Jaroslav Kurzweil

Vol. 8: Integration between the Lebesgue Integral and the Henstock–Kurzweil

Integral: Its Relation to Local Convex Vector Spaces
Jaroslav Kurzweil

Vol. 9: Theories of Integration: The Integrals of Riemann, Lebesgue,

Henstock–Kurzweil, and McShane
Douglas S Kurtz & Charles W Swartz

Vol. 10: Topics in Banach Space Integration

Òtefan Schwabik & Ye Guoju
Vol. 12: Henstock–Kurzweil Integration on Euclidean Spaces
Tuo Yeong Lee
Vol. 13: Theories of Integration: The Integrals of Riemann, Lebesgue,
Henstock–Kurzweil, and McShane (2nd Edition)
Douglas S Kurtz & Charles W Swartz

ZhangJi - Theories of Integration (2nd Ed).pmd 1 9/12/2011, 9:43 AM

 Series in Real Analysis – Vol. 13

THEORIES OF INTEGRATION
The Integrals of Riemann, Lebesgue,
Henstock–Kurzweil, and McShane

Second Edition

Douglas S Kurtz
New Mexico State University, USA

Charles W Swartz
New Mexico State University, USA

World Scientific
NEW JERSEY • LONDON • SINGAPORE • BEIJING • SHANGHAI • HONG KONG • TA I P E I • CHENNAI

8291. 9789814368995-tp.indd 2 7/28/11 1:32 PM

 Published by
World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
5 Toh Tuck Link, Singapore 596224
USA office: 27 Warren Street, Suite 401-402, Hackensack, NJ 07601
UK office: 57 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9HE

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Series in Real Analysis — Vol. 13

THEORIES OF INTEGRATION
The Integrals of Riemann, Lebesgue, Henstock–Kurzweil, and McShane
(2nd Edition)

Copyright © 2012 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.

All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval
system now known or to be invented, without written permission from the Publisher.

For photocopying of material in this volume, please pay a copying fee through the Copyright
Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. In this case permission to
photocopy is not required from the publisher.

ISBN-13 978-981-4368-99-5
ISBN-10 981-4368-99-7

Printed in Singapore.

ZhangJi - Theories of Integration (2nd Ed).pmd 2 9/12/2011, 9:43 AM

August 23, 2011 11:58 WSPC/Book Trim Size for 9in x 6in IntegrationBook

To Jessica and Nita, for supporting us during the long haul to bring this
book to fruition.

v
This page intentionally left blank
August 23, 2011 11:58 WSPC/Book Trim Size for 9in x 6in IntegrationBook

Preface to the First Edition

This book introduces the reader to a broad collection of integration theo-

ries, focusing on the Riemann, Lebesgue, Henstock-Kurzweil and McShane
integrals. By studying classical problems in integration theory (such as
convergence theorems and integration of derivatives), we will follow a his-
torical development to show how new theories of integration were developed
to solve problems that earlier integration theories could not handle. Sev-
eral of the integrals receive detailed developments; others are given a less
complete discussion in the book, while problems and references directing
the reader to future study are included.
The chapters of this book are written so that they may be read indepen-
dently, except for the sections which compare the various integrals. This
means that individual chapters of the book could be used to cover topics in
integration theory in introductory real analysis courses. There should be
sufficient exercises in each chapter to serve as a text.
We begin the book with the problem of defining and computing the area
of a region in the plane including the computation of the area of the region
interior to a circle. This leads to a discussion of the approximating sums
that will be used throughout the book.
The real content of the book begins with a chapter on the Riemann in-
tegral. We give the definition of the Riemann integral and develop its basic
properties, including linearity, positivity and the Cauchy criterion. After
presenting Darboux’s definition of the integral and proving necessary and
sufficient conditions for Darboux integrability, we show the equivalence of
the Riemann and Darboux definitions. We then discuss lattice properties
and the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus. We present necessary and suf-
ficient conditions for Riemann integrability in terms of sets with Lebesgue
measure 0. We conclude the chapter with a discussion of improper integrals.

vii
August 23, 2011 11:58 WSPC/Book Trim Size for 9in x 6in IntegrationBook

viii Theories of Integration

We motivate the development of the Lebesgue and Henstock-Kurzweil

integrals in the next two chapters by pointing out deficiencies in the Rie-
mann integral, which these integrals address. Convergence theorems are
used to motivate the Lebesgue integral and the Fundamental Theorem of
Calculus to motivate the Henstock-Kurzweil integral.
We begin the discussion of the Lebesgue integral by establishing the
standard convergence theorem for the Riemann integral concerning uni-
formly convergent sequences. We then give an example that points out
the failure of the Bounded Convergence Theorem for the Riemann integral,
and use this to motivate Lebesgue’s descriptive definition of the Lebesgue
integral. We show how Lebesgue’s descriptive definition leads in a natu-
ral way to the definitions of Lebesgue measure and the Lebesgue integral.
Following a discussion of Lebesgue measurable functions and the Lebesgue
integral, we develop the basic properties of the Lebesgue integral, including
convergence theorems (Bounded, Monotone, and Dominated). Next, we
compare the Riemann and Lebesgue integrals. We extend the Lebesgue
integral to n-dimensional Euclidean space, give a characterization of the
Lebesgue integral due to Mikusinski, and use the characterization to prove
Fubini’s Theorem on the equality of multiple and iterated integrals. A dis-
cussion of the space of integrable functions concludes with the Riesz-Fischer
Theorem.
In the following chapter, we discuss versions of the Fundamental The-
orem of Calculus for both the Riemann and Lebesgue integrals and give
examples showing that the most general form of the Fundamental Theorem
of Calculus does not hold for either integral. We then use the Fundamental
Theorem to motivate the definition of the Henstock-Kurzweil integral, also
know as the gauge integral and the generalized Riemann integral. We de-
velop basic properties of the Henstock-Kurzweil integral, the Fundamental
Theorem of Calculus in full generality, and the Monotone and Dominated
Convergence Theorems. We show that there are no improper integrals
in the Henstock-Kurzweil theory. After comparing the Henstock-Kurzweil
integral with the Lebesgue integral, we conclude the chapter with a discus-
sion of the space of Henstock-Kurzweil integrable functions and Henstock-
Kurzweil integrals in Rn .
Finally, we discuss the “gauge-type” integral of McShane, obtained by
slightly varying the definition of the Henstock-Kurzweil integral. We es-
tablish the basic properties of the McShane integral and discuss absolute
integrability. We then show that the McShane integral is equivalent to the
Lebesgue integral and that a function is McShane integrable if and only if
August 23, 2011 11:58 WSPC/Book Trim Size for 9in x 6in IntegrationBook

Preface to the First Edition ix

it is absolutely Henstock-Kurzweil integrable. Consequently, the McShane

integral could be used to give a presentation of the Lebesgue integral which
does not require the development of measure theory.
This page intentionally left blank
August 23, 2011 11:58 WSPC/Book Trim Size for 9in x 6in IntegrationBook

Preface to the Second Edition

The second edition of this text contains several additions and changes in
Chapters 3, 4 and 5. In Chapter 3 on the Lebesgue integral, we have
added material about the convolution product and spaces of Lebesgue in-
tegrable functions. As an application of the Fubini-Tonelli Theorems, the
convolution product of two integrable functions is defined in Section 3.8.1.
Approximate identities are defined and used with the convolution prod-
uct to establish several approximation results, including the Weierstrass
Approximation Theorem. In Section 3.9 on the space L1 (E) of Lebesgue
integrable functions, we have added examples of dense subsets of L1 (E)
and given applications including a proof of the Riemann-Lebesgue Lemma.
We have included a change of variables theorem for the Lebesgue integral as
a consequence of the Riesz-Fischer Theorem on the completeness of L1 (E).
The notion of uniform integrability is introduced in Chapters 4 and
5 on the Henstock-Kurzweil and McShane integrals. New proofs of the
major convergence theorems, the Monotone and Dominated Convergence
Theorems, are given for both integrals based on the notion of uniform
integrability. A new integration-by-parts result for the Henstock-Kurzweil
integral is added and used to establish a version of the Riemann-Lebesgue
Lemma for the Henstock-Kurzweil integral.
More exercised have been added.

xi
This page intentionally left blank
August 23, 2011 11:58 WSPC/Book Trim Size for 9in x 6in IntegrationBook

Contents

Preface to the First Edition vii

Preface to the Second Edition xi

1. Introduction 1
1.1 Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

2. Riemann integral 11
2.1 Riemann’s definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.2 Basic properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.3 Cauchy criterion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.4 Darboux’s definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.4.1 Necessary and sufficient conditions for Darboux
integrability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.4.2 Equivalence of the Riemann and Darboux definitions 25
2.4.3 Lattice properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.4.4 Integrable functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.4.5 Additivity of the integral over intervals . . . . . . . . 31
2.5 Fundamental Theorem of Calculus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.5.1 Integration by parts and substitution . . . . . . . . . 37
2.6 Characterizations of integrability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
2.6.1 Lebesgue measure zero . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
2.7 Improper integrals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
2.8 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

xiii
August 23, 2011 11:58 WSPC/Book Trim Size for 9in x 6in IntegrationBook

xiv Contents

3. Convergence theorems and the Lebesgue integral 53

3.1 Lebesgue’s descriptive definition of the integral . . . . . . . 56
3.2 Measure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
3.2.1 Outer measure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
3.2.2 Lebesgue measure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
3.2.3 The Cantor set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
3.3 Lebesgue measure in Rn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
3.4 Measurable functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
3.5 Lebesgue integral . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
3.5.1 Integrals depending on a parameter . . . . . . . . . . 111
3.6 Riemann and Lebesgue integrals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
3.7 Mikusinski’s characterization of the Lebesgue integral . . . 114
3.8 Fubini’s Theorem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
3.8.1 Convolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
3.9 The space of Lebesgue integrable functions . . . . . . . . . 129
3.10 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

4. Fundamental Theorem of Calculus and the Henstock-

Kurzweil integral 147
4.1 Denjoy and Perron integrals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
4.2 A General Fundamental Theorem of Calculus . . . . . . . . 151
4.3 Basic properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
4.3.1 Cauchy criterion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
4.3.2 The integral as a set function . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
4.4 Unbounded intervals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
4.5 Henstock’s Lemma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
4.6 Absolute integrability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
4.6.1 Bounded variation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
4.6.2 Absolute integrability and indefinite integrals . . . . 192
4.6.3 Lattice properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
4.7 Convergence theorems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
4.8 Henstock-Kurzweil and Lebesgue integrals . . . . . . . . . . 210
4.9 Differentiating indefinite integrals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
4.9.1 Functions with integral 0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
4.10 Characterizations of indefinite integrals . . . . . . . . . . . 217
4.10.1 Derivatives of monotone functions . . . . . . . . . . . 220
4.10.2 Indefinite Lebesgue integrals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
4.10.3 Indefinite Riemann integrals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
Other documents randomly have
different content
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Reign of the
telepuppets
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Reign of the telepuppets

Author: Daniel F. Galouye

Illustrator: Lloyd Birmingham

Release date: December 30, 2023 [eBook #72555]

Language: English

Original publication: New York, NY: Ziff-Davis Publishing Company,

1963

Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REIGN OF THE

TELEPUPPETS ***
 Reign of the Telepuppets

By DANIEL F. GALOUYE

In all Creation, Bigboss knew there

was nothing superior to him. Yet a nagging
in his memory drums hinted that somewhere
were creatures who challenged his rule.

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from

Amazing Stories August 1963.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
"The way this thing shapes up," Director Gabe Randall of the Bureau
of Interstellar Exploration was saying in his usual manner of
understatement, "it will be our most important trouble-shooting
mission to date."
He stood cranelike, one leg hooked over a corner of the desk, as he
whacked his thigh with an illuminated indicator rod. With purposeful
eyes, he sized up the other three men in the briefing room. Lean and
alert, he held himself straight against the encroachment of age that
was evident in a fully white shock of hair and a brow furrowed with
decades of executive responsibility.
"I suppose," he digressed, smiling, "that we'll have to get along
without our Maid of the Megacycles."
Dave Stewart, Randall's assistant, glanced at the empty chair. "Carol
said she'd be along shortly." Actually, she hadn't. But, if the situation
were reversed, she'd cover for him.
"Woman's prerogative," the director observed, shrugging
phlegmatically. "Gentlemen, I submit that the greatest deterrent to
progress in BIE is the fact that direct radio empathy can be
developed only in women—and young ones at that."
But Stewart recognized the imperceptible jocularity in the other's
stare. It contrasted the sobriety with which he had said only a
moment earlier that the nature of the mission required top personnel.
At half the director's age, Stewart had earned his recognition as
logical successor to the seat of executive authority. And, in Carol
Cummings, Randall had selected the most capable radio empathy
specialist BIE had produced in years. The prettiest, too, he added as
an afterthought.
But there you could draw the line. Below was the Photon II's crew. At
44, Nat McAllister, pilot, was well past the age when he might look
forward to a supervisory position, thanks to a rash of bad-judgment
accidents and a general absence of ambition. And Ship Systems
Officer Mortimer, ten years younger, seemed anchored to his niche by
an equal measure of minimum ability—if not by the sheer weight of
his two hundred and fifty pounds.
"Top" personnel for a "priority" job? Stewart shook his head
dubiously.

Randall rapped the desk and the sharp sound snapped McAllister's
chin from his chest, where it had gradually descended.
"Since it appears we'll continue to be disfavored by Miss Cummings'
absence," the director resumed, "we'll proceed."
He touched a button and darkness filled the room. Another stud
hurled into existence a ten-foot sphere of galactic luminosity, ablaze
with motes of scattered brilliance.
Stewart located the co-ordinate axes and traced them to Sol. Nearby
was Centauri, ringed with a halo to signify location of Headquarters,
Bureau of Interstellar Exploration. Mortimer's corpulent face took on
a Buddha-like appearance in the illumination from Alpha Hyades,
hovering near his left cheek.
"All right, Stewart," Randall gestured with his rod. "Suppose you
identify that star immediately behind your shoulder for McAllister and
Mortimer's benefit."
"Alpha Tauri."
"Right. Aldebaran—where you made a telepuppet drop on Four-B two
years ago."
"Just before Harlston and I pushed on out to explore beyond
Aldebaran."
Randall directed his next words at the pilot and ship systems officer.
"What Stewart did not know as he ranged outward was that the
Aldebaran telepuppet team, for some reason, stopped transmitting—
less than a year after the drop."
Stewart finger-combed a spray of blond hair off his forehead. In the
pseudo galactic illumination his face, tanned from exposure to a score
of suns radiating heavily in the ultraviolet range, appeared cinnamon
in hue.
Randall glanced back at him. "Tell them what we're going to do on
this mission."
"Unknot the puppet strings," he said laconically, becoming impatient
with his dutiful recitation to enlighten the other two.
The director glanced off to his right, eyebrow raised to compound the
eternal ridges of his forehead. "I see we've got our Maid of the
Megacycles with us at last. Couldn't you tear yourself away from a
Terracast, Miss Cummings? Or did you bring it along?"
Carol advanced through a patch of projected galactic nebulosity. Ebon
hair sheening with the reflected glow, she smiled saucily and tapped
her temple. "It so happens I am peeking in on a videocast," she
bantered. "And I'm learning more about what's behind this briefing
than if I'd been here all along."
Groping for her chair, she weaved between the steady, cold points of
suspended light that represented Epsilon Scorpii and Eta Orphiuchi.
"Don't look now, Chief," she added, winking, "but I'm afraid this
newscast shows you've got a leak in your bureau."
Stewart caught her arm and guided her toward the chair. His hand
held the coarse texture of fatigue coveralls that did little to obscure
the shapeliness of her lithe, five-foot-four form.
She returned his greeting with a spirited, "Hi, glad to have you
aboard. Not planning to lead us off on a two-year jaunt?"
Randall tapped the desk with his rod. "If Miss Cummings is willing to
forego informalities, we can get along with our briefing."
McAllister tossed his head erect, but started nodding again almost
immediately. Mortimer looked up tolerantly from contemplation on
the orbiting of one of his stout thumbs around the other.
The director touched another button and the celestial sphere
expanded to twice its diameter, encompassing another seventy light-
years in all directions. "Again, directly behind you, Stewart, is—
what?"
Enthusiastically, he sat erect. "The Hyades Cluster."
Randall laid down his rod. "Stewart, as you are aware, completed his
expedition two weeks ago—in a ship stripped down for maximum
range. Now he's going to tell us something about his experiences."
Mortimer, finally interested, glanced over at McAllister. The pilot,
however, was dozing.
Stewart stared at the cluster of four stars huddled together in the still
air of the briefing room. "We found the Hyades rich in Earth-type
worlds. Seven—" He paused. Was it seven, or eight? "Eight of them
are more like Terra than Terra itself. Four others are more suitable
than anything we've run across in a century and a half of galactic
exploration."
His eyes clung to the brilliant specks, set like jewels against a velvet
background. They were jewels—cold and glittering and beckoning.
And he could almost feel their attraction—like a magnet tugging on
filings of hope and ambition. Yet, somehow he felt dejected, as
though he were reluctant to reach out for them.
"You did all that in two years' time?" McAllister asked.
"Why yes, of course. I—" He could understand the other's skepticism,
however. He had covered a lot of interstellar space.
"You all know what this development means," Randall said.
"That our expansion will be concentrated in a new direction!" Carol
volunteered hopefully.
The chair creaked its complaint as Mortimer shifted his weight. "And
the Aldebaran telepuppets?"
Randall gestured for emphasis. "That robot team is now of first-rate
importance. We'll need a full analysis of Four-B in the shortest time
possible. The Hyades are a hundred and fifty light-years away—too
far for direct development. But a halfway base in the Aldebaran
system will open them up to us immediately."
Carol found Stewart's arm. "This one is really worthwhile. Think you
can get your puppets back on their strings?"
"I suppose so. There can't be too much wrong with them." But still
his thoughts were on the Hyades. Somehow they left him with an
emptiness, a bittersweet taste. Whereas he knew he should feel only
enchantment and the satisfaction of accomplishment in his discovery.
"That all there is to this mission?" McAllister, fully awake now, asked
disappointedly.
"I thought it was going to be a challenge," Mortimer complained.
Randall played the buttons on his desk as though they were a
console keyboard. The celestial sphere deflated, then collapsed.
Room lights blazed, harsh and intense. "Everything clear?" he asked.
Then he added, "We'll assemble at oh-eight-hundred Octoday at the
Photon II dock. My gear is already packed."
Carol's eyes widened. "You're going too?"
"Yes, finally. About time I got out in the field and see how our new
generation of—ah, specialists handles things."
Stewart only stared at the director. On the latter's desk were
mountainous stacks of back work. Yet he was finding time to get
away.

Rationalization circuits working sluggishly as he surveyed his realm,

Bigboss dredged from the fragmented impressions on his memory
drums his most fascinating, most disturbing subject for speculation:
In all Creation, there was nothing superior to Him. This material
world that stretched out around Him, everything in the celestial
reaches as far as infinity itself—all His! He had brought it into
existence, although (confound those faulty drums!) He might not be
able to recall the specific acts of Creation.
Yet He sensed, with the nagging certainty of conviction, that
somewhere in His Universe, there was an insolent creature or
creatures who would dare challenge His infinite supremacy.
Well (He generated power so fiercely that he had to shunt the excess
to ground), let them! He could desire nothing more. And His only
hope was that they would confront Him personally to express their
insolence. Then there would be opportunity for an accounting!
Remembering his blaster, he swung around, aimed it at a boulder
and, vengefully, fed it an enormous surge of power. Angry liquid light
streaked out from the intensifier and crashed against the rock. The
concussion sent him skittering back several meters.
Bigboss was by far the most magnificent member of the clan—if
indeed, he should condescend to regard himself as belonging to the
set at all. Fully twice the size of any of the others, he reared
pompously erect on four stout appendages. Through its ports, his
central section offered glowing evidence of the nuclear processes
within. Majestic in stance, he swung a pair of formidable members—
the auxiliary blaster and a massive, extensible vise.
Assuring himself that the insolent creatures were not spurious
impressions on his drums, he blasted another boulder. That for the
pretenders, should they ever decide to contest His Reign!
Bigboss reacted abruptly to the realization that Minnie was watching
him. No longer was his digital subsystem receiving her stream of
telemetric signals. Relays clicked within his control section and video
gain brought intensified visual awareness in all four quadrants.
Immediately he spotted Minnie, immobile and ungainly as gyros
balanced her elongated metal form on six jointed legs.
Her drill head, held high above the outcropping on which she had
been working, glinted in the light of a shimmering, golden sun. Her
single, wide-angle lens, set like a Cyclopean eye in its chrome-plated
forehead, was focused intently on him.
Interrupting his subliminal correlation of data from the other workers,
he sent Minnie an indignant "back-to-work" impulse. Reluctantly, she
sank her bit into the rock.
But she had ingested only a slotful of fragments when the ground
bulged beside her. Displaced soil slid away and Screw Worm erupted,
carrying in his thread pouches mineral specimens for her analyzers.
Bigboss generated more easily as he watched Worm at work. Not
that the menial helper, who occupied the lowest rung on the ladder,
was worthy of speculative attention. But a laboring borer meant
Minnie was pre-occupied with her limited supervisory function and
couldn't be plotting to supplant him.

Working near Minnie, Seismo squatted at his sedentary task. Sensor

rod sunk to bedrock, he was proudly purring an encoded disclosure of
distant rumblings beneath the surface. Less than a hectometer away,
Sky Watcher's tripodal locomotive system was bringing him carefully
up a rise. Arriving, he assumed the location Sun Watcher had only
recently abandoned. He adjusted himself on dead level, then thrust
out a number of lensed tubes that locked on a referent star, three
distant planets and a smaller satellite.
At that moment came an excited eureka impulse from Breather,
posted outside a cave and briskly inflating and deflating the external
pouches that bracketed his long, cylindrical form. The impulse
proudly told of his detection of oxygen traces.
Nearby, Scraper diligently shoveled soil into his scoop in an endless
search for micro-organisms and DNA molecules. Grazer munched on
a growth already identified as lichen. Peter the Meter sat on a knoll
scanning the sky with his battery of inferometers, radiometers and
bolometers.
Of the distant workers, Bigboss was most sensitively aware of the
volant signals from Maggie. Kilometers away, she was covering the
ground in great, leaping strides of abandon as she sought out and
traced down each fascinating isomagnetic line of variation.
Work, work, work. Get the job done. Shake a leg. Shoulder (whatever
that was) to the wheel. Dig in and pitch. But—for what?
What was responsible for the irresistible compulsion? Was it his own
idea? But of course, it must be. For, how could there be any power
capable of directing Him? Unless, perhaps, it might conceivably be
the insolent creatures who lurked like vague shadows on the fringe of
his almost obliterated memory. But, no!
He, Himself, was the Supreme Being of All Creation!
His master timer peaked in its four hundred-cycle sine wave,
reminding him of the chore at hand. The sun had set and the huge,
pink planet had already laid claim to the night sky. Just below it was
the special grouping of stars that matched, point for point, the
referent pattern on his orientation drum.
Programmed functions took over. Sensors hunted out the bright
central star and aimed his parabolic antenna at the designated spot
seven degrees southeastward. Then he loosed his transmission into
subspace. Data stored over long hours of tedious sequencing surged
from the tape, bringing a euphoria of relief.
Eventually telemetric transmission ended and Bigboss, as had
become his custom, automatically turned his thoughts to the Totem.
All metal it was—sleek and sheening and shaped like a truncated
cone as it lay powerless on the plain beyond the hill. How akin it was
to him and the clan! Why, it even seemed he could almost remember
having once been a part of the huge, polished thing. Perhaps it was
the very vessel He had used on His Celestial Tour of Creation.
Yes, it was time for Pilgrimage to Totem. And a fitting reward it would
be, as always, for successful transmission.

He mustered the volition required to break functional compulsion.

Then he sent the "fall-in" impulse to his subjects. Eventually the line
of march took shape, with Bigboss leading his analyzers up the first
hill and calling for the proper reverential attitude.
Behind him lumbered Minnie, her thick neck weighted by the bulky
drill and swinging awkwardly with the sway of her six-legged stride.
Seismo, encumbered with a faulty, dragging sensor rod, was having
some difficulty maintaining a straight course.
Sky Watcher came along in lunging motions, a natural consequence
of his tripodal system. Immediately to his rear, Sun Watcher, who
held the fifth rung on the ladder, moved smoothly ahead with all his
instruments retracted except the solar plasma detector.
Then there was a break in the line for Maggie, who could now be
seen galloping along on an interceptive course. Peter the Meter,
lurching from the imbalance of an extended boom-and-ball sensor,
appeared somewhat like a many-spiked sphere on spindly legs.
Farther down the file, no deference was extended in the form of gaps
for those missing workers who had yet to join the march.
Bringing up the rear were the diminutive Scraper and Grazer,
resembling a pair of scurrying crabs, and Screw Worm, using his
blade-edge jets to propel himself in a rolling, transverse motion.
Aware of commotion behind him, Bigboss continued unconcernedly
up the rise. Sky Watcher, interpreting Seismo's faulty motions as an
opportunity for his own forced ascendancy, had drawn back a photo-
multiplier tube and sent it crashing into the other's rear plate.
The attack, though, was only self-thwarting, since it jarred a servo
unit into retracting Seismo's dangling sensor rod. His locomotive
integrity restored, he kicked out with a pedal pad and sent Sky
Watcher flailing back into Sun Watcher. The latter rammed forward
with his plasma detector's boom-and-ball shield, managing to knock
Sky Watcher back into his proper position.
Finally fearful of damage to instruments, Bigboss gruffly radioed "cut-
the-comedy" impulses, then trained his rearward lens on Minnie. She
had inched furtively forward and was now menacing his upper section
with her drill head.
He considered wielding his blaster but rejected that expedient as an
excessive and unnecessary ostentation. Instead he countered by
raising his extensible vise. The lesser show of strength sufficed to
discourage Minnie's ambition, for the moment at least.
How foolish she was to imagine she could supplant Him as the
Supreme Being!
Let her try.
Even if she succeeded, he would merely deny her a place at the
trough next feeding period.
Then where would she get the vital charge for her batteries?

II

The Photon II groaned, heaved and popped out of subspace for a fix
before striking out on the last, short leg of its journey. As Stewart
had feared, they were five light-years off course.
Ship Systems Officer Mortimer's thickly-fleshed face struggled with an
embarrassing smile. "Well, you can't hit 'em on the nose every time
out," he rationalized, waddling back to the charts.
Stewart reflected that rare indeed were the occasions on which
Mortimer came anywhere near the nasal target. Conceding the loss of
nearly an entire day, he waited for Director Randall's permissive nod,
then joined Mortimer in cutting the new navigation tapes.
It took two hours to process all data and feed them into the SCC-772.
When the computer burped out the new heading, Stewart threaded
the tape into the control programmer and decided to spend the
uneventful period of subspace travel in his bunk.
Sleep came swiftly, but it was shallow and restless. More than once
over the next several hours, as he plummeted down a chasm of
nightmares, he regretted having left the control compartment.
First his dreams brought him back to the Hyadean Cluster, as they
had on so many occasions during recent weeks. And, for a while, he
drank in the blue-green beauty of the seven—or, was it eight?—
worlds that seemed to beckon with all their irresistible allure.
They were incredibly splendrous, these planets that would soon
embrace man and feed and clothe and shelter him. But, as he
admired them in his dream, a sort of astronomical surrealism
bunched them together—all in orbit around a central, massive sun—
until it seemed they were occupying so compact an area that they
must surely crumble under the weight of their mutual attraction.
And, as though upon his suggestion, crumble they did. Only, it was
no pulverizing force that scattered them into fragmented rings, such
as those around Sol's Saturn. Instead, each planet cracked like a
hatching egg, its crust stripping away and exposing beneath a
gruesome Harpy that was all razor-sharp talons and vicious beak and
slime-filmed, ruffled feathers.
Stewart tried to scream himself awake but couldn't. He only flailed
helplessly in the void while monstrous wings thrashed space into a
frenzy, producing great currents that set the stars themselves to
eddying and swirling.
They dived at him, but before their talons could sink into his flesh he
awoke trembling and cold in his twisted, moist clothes.
For a long while he merely lay there trying to wash his mind of the
horror. But the steady whine of the subspace drive reminded him that
the Photon was streaking in the direction of the Hyades. That it
would end its headlong plunge in the Aldebaran system, only halfway
there, brought no relief from his baseless, unreasonable fear.
When he returned to the control compartment, the ship was back in
normal space and within Aldebaran Four-B's gravitational field.
He joined Carol Cummings in the forward section, hooking his arm
through a view-port strap and mooring himself against null gravity.
"You suppose we're home free?" she asked uncertainly.
Her normally effusive smile, he noticed, had moderated considerably.
"If McAllister doesn't louse up his landing."
"I take it he's not very efficient."
"Pure and simple understatement. Last time out he missed an entire
continent. It was a case for Search and Rescue."
Carol pressed forward and soft light from Aldebaran Four, off the port
bow, warmed her sculpturesque features with primrose high lights. "I
should imagine he would have been cashiered."
"But he wasn't. Instead he turns up on this crucial mission."
He busied himself with frequency adjustment on his portable
transmitter. With it he would be able to tell, soon after landing,
whether the Operations Co-ordinator could still be reached orally
through its command discriminator circuit.
He flicked on the power switch, positioned the microphone
comfortably against his larynx and sharply intoned a series of
numerals. An oscilloscope faithfully traced the amplitude pattern,
verifying effective transmission.
Down the companionway in the pilot's compartment, he could see
McAllister anchored in his acceleration couch. He was drifting back
and forth between padding and slack restraining straps, vicariously
lost in the blood-and-guts action of a dramatape feeding into the
view slot of his helmet.
Stewart read the label on the empty container—"The Kowalski Bros.
in the Korean War."
"Always has his head buried in one of those escapist tapes, hasn't
he?" Carol observed, still staring out the port.
"I don't think he ever grew up," Stewart agreed. But, again, even the
Bureau seemed to contain its share of coasters who had never quite
reached maturity, he remembered.
"Even in the Bureau," Carol observed thoughtfully, "you'll find
coasters who've never reached maturity."
Intuitively, he tensed. Was it just coincidence that she had repeated,
almost word for word, his own thoughts?
"I've never looked at any of those warfare tapes myself," she said.
"But I've heard about them. Do you suppose armed conflict was
really that horrible?"
"Pretty rough, according to the historians. It's not the sort of thing I'd
like to be mixed up in."
"And McAllister?"
"Him? He's just building up a reservoir of false courage through his
viewer." Yet, in fairness to the pilot, Stewart had to admit that he,
himself, felt a deep and reasonable gratitude that wars were a thing
of the historic past.
Carol sighed and glanced at him. "I'm certainly glad," she said,
straight-faced, "that wars are a thing of the historic past."
He seized her arm. "Carol! Do you realize you're repeating everything
I'm thinking? You've gone a step beyond radio empathy! You can pull
in thought waves too!"
"No-o-o, you're joking!"
"No. Honest, I—" But his words were lost in her welling laughter.
He followed her amused stare to his portable voice transmitter and
the mike that still clung to his throat. And instantly he realized that
his subvocalizations, being picked up and broadcast, were to her like
a window opening on his thought processes.
"Why, you—" Feigning indignation, he caught her around the waist
and pulled her toward him. Weightless, she drifted forward and
spread out conveniently across his knees.
But before he could bring a hand down resoundingly on the curvature
of taut coveralls, Randall drifted in on the scene.
Still laughing, Carol straightened and announced, "Saved—by the
great, white-haired protector."

Randall grinned benignly, lighted his pipe and stared out the port.
"Couldn't help hearing your conversation about the horror of warfare.
I've seen all the documentary tapes. It was rough."
"Thank God it's a closed book," Carol said seriously.
"But, is it? There's still a large and articulate school that regards
armed conflict as an instinctive human mechanism."
"We've had no war in two hundred years," Stewart said.
"Only because political subdivisions haven't had time for one. The
instinct is blurred as a result of our expanding into a vacuum."
"I see." Carol's eyes strained with disillusionment. "And the question
is—what happens when we run out of galaxy?"
"Fat chance." Stewart laughed. "We've got a few billion years to go
before we find ourselves short on worlds."
Having apparently lost interest in the conversation, Randall was
staring ahead at the onrushing satellite.
"That's one way of looking at it," Carol said pensively. "But there's
also another possibility—resistance to the expansion."
"You kidding? In two centuries we haven't run into a single life form
that's the intellectual equivalent of a Terran fiddler crab. What do you
think, Chief?"
The director blew a stream of smoke at the swiftly expanding disc of
Four-B. "I think our Maid of the Megacycles ought to start sniffing for
that telepuppet team. I wouldn't want to rely on Mortimer's locating
them with directional gear."
Carol faced the view port with her eyes closed for perhaps three
minutes. Then she grinned. "I think I've got it! Not just a single,
strong signal. Bundles of weak ones."
"It figures," Stewart verified. "The OC wouldn't be transmitting now.
But the lesser puppets would be funneling the stuff into the CXB-
1624. Can you identify any frequencies?"
She hesitated. "I'd say they're spaced out between fifteen hundred
and two thousand kilo-cycles."
"You're a bit off. Should be sixteen to twenty-four hundred."
She opened her eyes, studied the rugged face of the satellite, then
pointed. "There—near the end of that mountain range."
He handed her a mike and earphone set. "I'll tell McAllister you're
ready to guide him in."
As Stewart had feared, McAllister's landing turned out to be a real
corker. It even started with a three-gainer flip, rather than a simple
end-about maneuver, when he first applied braking thrust.
Bigboss responded automatically to the abruptly peaking sine wave
that reminded him it was time for feeding. Summoning the clan with
a brisk flow of "come-and-get it" signals on all command wave
lengths, he strutted to the center of the clearing and prepared the
trough. Squatting, he switched on all outlet circuits and directed
bristling current into each jack.
The workers came from the cave, over the hills, out of the shadowy
depths of fissures, from behind grotesque outcroppings. Illuminators
piercing the twilight gloom, they extended retractable electrodes and
converged on Bigboss.
One by one, plugs slipped into jacks and steadily increasing drain
gave assurance of an orderly distribution of current.
Minnie was late arriving. She came along clumsily, massive drill head
bobbing with her awkward stride. Had Bigboss' memory pack been
serving him more efficiently at the time, he might have realized her
gyros couldn't be overcorrecting that radically without triggering a
"fix-me-I'm-broke" impulse.
But, as it was, she completed her apparently innocuous approach
with impunity. Taking a last, measured step, she toppled over
backwards on her posterior analyzing chamber. An ostensibly helpless
victim of imbalance, her neck teetered skyward and her drill head
hovered over Bigboss' upper section.
Then it crashed down, the drill bit shattering his port video pickup
lens. Instantly he lost visual contact with one quadrant of his
surroundings. He reacted at once, though, swiveling his upper section
around ninety degrees and bringing Minnie back in sight through
another lens. Guarding against repetition of the accident, he reached
out and gripped her neck in his vise. He guided her plug into the
proper jack, maintaining his purchase just to be sure.
Accident? he asked himself.
It was an unfamiliar concept, at best. Then he recalled that "mishap"
was a notion not applicable to members of the clan. Perhaps other
beings in other universes were given to blunder. In His World,
though, He had arranged it that His intellects would be without error.
Here the concept "intent" had no polar opposite.
Which meant that Minnie, not having reported malfunctioning gyros,
had planned the destruction of one of his video sensors.
Vindictively, he started to turn upon her. But he realized he would be
circumventing the primary compulsion—work, work, work. She was,
after all, diligently discharging a worthwhile function in unraveling the
secrets He had so cunningly hidden in His Creation.

Feeding finally over, he signaled a general "back-to-work" order on all

wave lengths and watched his subjects return to their chores,
motions brisk with restored energy.
For many sine wave peaks thereafter, Bigboss fretted over the
ramifications of having lost visual contact with a ninety-degree wedge
of his environs. Had Minnie intended that effect? Did her
rationalization pack have the capacity to reason out such a complex
cause-and-effect relationship? Had she anticipated his resulting
vulnerability?
Oh, he was compensating readily enough through self-reprograming:
stability for five sine wave saliences; activate upper section's
horizontal servomechanism; circumrotate ninety degrees; stabilize;
count five more waveform saliences; reverse procedure. That way
three video sensors did the job of four.
It gave him adequate coverage. But there were those times when the
demands of function modification required the full output of his
PM&R pack and his defensive scanning had to be sacrificed.
Such as now—when he was receiving Screw Worm's clear and frantic
"save-me" signals.
Activating his directional gear, he lumbered over to the precise spot—
a gentle rise of topsoil not far from where Minnie herself was
chipping away at a boulder. Engaging his ventral illuminator-sensor,
he located Worm's most recent drill hole. The borer's distress
impulses were issuing with great amplitude from the opening.
Bigboss unfolded his scoop and went to work.
It wasn't long before he had uncovered the borer's rearward axial
protuberance. Extending his ventral vise, he gripped Worm securely,
heaved to free him from the rock formation in which he had become
wedged, and brought him back to the surface.
Released, the lesser worker scurried off to rejoin Minnie.
Bigboss realized only then that, during the entire rescue operation,
he had neglected his defensive scanning procedure.
Restoring his upper section's quarterly rotational motion, he regarded
Minnie warily. Was there any significance to the fact that she was
facing him from the other side of the boulder, such that each time
she elevated her head her field of vision swept over him?
Experimentally, he moved twenty meters to his right. Compensating,
she skewed left, maintaining her visual advantage.
A calculated maneuver? Of course, it had to be. Perhaps her
insolence should be dealt with summarily. But how could that be
done without reducing the clan's over-all efficiency as a team
dedicated to the compulsion of work, work, work?

At that moment Peter the Meter, busy scanning the sky with his
battery of instruments, loosed a shrill eureka signal.
Bigboss thought for a moment that one of the latter's gamma ray
spectrometers had been swamped. But, on monitoring Peter's
telemetered stream, he discerned that the impulse was from an
infrared photometer. A check of co-ordinates showed the source of
disturbance to be skyward, with a dead zenith orientation.
He commandeered one of Sky Watcher's planetary telesensors and
redirected it at the source of new emanation. Now there were
additional data to throw light on the manifestation.
The disturbance was in the visual range; classification—material. A
rapidly shifting parallax suggested either constant location and swift
expansion, or steady size and brisk approach.
Sky Watcher, on his own adaptive initiative, settled that uncertainty.
His radar gear calculated a variable approach momentum averaging
twelve hundred kilometers an hour and decreasing.
Peter also improvised on his function, bringing into play a photometer
that instantly gauged the emissive intensity of the disturbance:
comparable to the parameter for solar brilliance.
The object had shifted from zenith and was drifting over into the
quadrant wherein the clan's Totem was located. Bigboss responded
with some degree of concern to this development. Did it represent a
threat to their revered symbol of metallic kinship?
Then he had the object in his own visual field. It was a great, blazing
ball of brilliance that extended a flickering tongue downward. Atop
the sphere of fiery energy sat a shining silver needle that resembled
nothing as much as it did the clan's own Totem!
Evaluation circuits frozen in a confusion of indecision, he stood there
fully unaware that he had discontinued his protective scanning and
had not brought Minnie into one of his lines of sight for a number of
sine wave epipeaks.
He was shocked back into action, however, when an equilibrium
circuit tripped the alarm that his attitude was unstable and beyond
compensation within the limits of gyroscopic control.
He pivoted sharply and planted two pedal discs down in the direction
of fall. As he did so, his upper command section swung around,
bringing a video lens to bear on Minnie. Refocusing, he saw she had
crept up from his blind quadrant and had begun drilling into his
power-plant section.
Fool. In her thirst for supremacy, didn't she realize she could touch
off an explosion that would hurl them both halfway to the pink
planet?
He pulled away from the grinding bite of her drill and brought his vise
swinging forcibly upward. It slammed into her forward analyzing
compartment and sent her reeling backward. Her equilibrium system
overextended, she toppled sideways and lay there kicking
ineffectually.
By then, the great blazing light had disappeared beyond the hills at
almost the exact site where the Totem was located.
He left Minnie to her struggles and went eagerly forward. Eventually,
she would evaluate her position and hit upon the proper combination
of responses to right herself.
Meanwhile the now surface-borne needle was a new environmental
item that cried for analysis, with eureka signals already coming in
from several workers. Maggie, for instance, was covering the ground
in lurching strides, homing in on one of the new lines of force the
object had established.
Seismo had recorded and sent along exciting data on tremors that
could be interpreted in terms of a number of closely-spaced, localized
impacts. Even Minnie—despite her predicament and in response to
the basic compulsion of her function—was using her high neutron
tool. Evaluation circuits humming, she was sending a stream of
signals that fairly screamed, "Pure metal!"
And Grazer, abandoning a patch of lichen, was scrambling up a
hillside in the direction of the recently arrived object. His eureka was
the most frenzied of all. Which was understandable, since he was
sensing DNA molecules for the first time in his memory!
The best Bigboss could surmise, from a precursory correlation of
data, was that Grazer had detected the molecules in a substance that
wound helically around the great needlelike form.
Then his rationalization circuits labored under peak voltage as an
obscure memory fragment thrust itself up from one of his drums.
Again, it was a vague bit concerning his suspicions on the existence
of insolent creatures who might imagine themselves superior to Him
—might even be presumptuous enough to give orders to the
Supreme Being!
If such creatures were more than spurious impressions, he reasoned,
then wasn't it likely that they, too, could move about in celestial
vessels? Hadn't He all along feared that if they came to contest His
Reign they would come from the sky?

Voltage regulators clicked frantically as he shunted aside raging

current and averted damage to his rationalization pack. But he could
hardly consider the beings without overgenerating. They were that
infuriating.
Had the contemptuous creatures come at last, as he had always
supposed they would? Was his period of agonizing vigilance at an
end? Could this be the final accounting he had anticipated so
anxiously?
Enraged, he lumbered forward, his blaster extended rigidly before
him, as though it were a lance.

III
Stewart dug out from under the miscellany of dislodged gear that had
buried him in his acceleration couch.
"Good landing," he grumbled at McAllister, whose hands were still
trembling at the controls, "—all six of them."
White-faced, Carol recovered her composure by releasing her hair
from its free-fall net. "I wasn't sure," she whispered, "whether he
was going to land or just play bounce."
Randall tested his legs. "Well, at least we are here."
He crossed over to the external view console and threw a switch.
One of the screens flickered, then steadied with a wide-angle image
of the sky, framed in the sweeping curvature of the horizon.
Aldebaran, setting, was bisected by a serrate mountain range, while
its fourth planet was rising in all its brilliant immensity.
More interested in their surface surroundings, however, Stewart
brought another screen into play and aimed it at the ground. The
lens swept across, then came back to focus on a silvery form that
reared skyward beyond a nearby hill.
"At least McAllister put us down in the right place," he conceded.
"There's the telepuppet barge—right where I left it."
He swung the lens on around and picked up movement on the
ground almost in the shadow of the Photon.
"And there are our puppets!" Carol announced.
The Operations Co-ordinator, its laser intensifier evidently locked in
the ready position, was leading a march toward the ship. Some of the
team were not in evidence, as was to be expected after a year of
managing on their own. But there was the Seismometer, the
Astronomical Data Collector and the Solar Plasma Detector.
Trailing behind were the Atmosphere Analyzer and the Radiometer
Complex. Stewart could make out even the lesser forms of the Micro-
organism Collector and Analyzer, the Flora C&A and the Subordinate
Mineral Specimen Collector. In the distance, the Roving
Magnetometer was homing in on the rest of the team.
He opened the locker and selected a hostile-atmosphere sheath.
"This shouldn't take long. Just a matter of replacing the OC's
malfunctioning unit. It's either a thermal increment problem or a
component that's been ionized by particle radiation."
Reluctantly, Randall turned from the zenith screen. "How are you
going to go about it?"
"Try a few oral commands on the OC." He slipped into the rubberized
suit. "Trouble's probably in its CXB-1624 digital system."
"You picking up anything, Carol?" Randall asked.
She tilted her head alertly. "Just the subordinate stuff. I can't tell if
the CXB's functioning 'til big boy starts transmitting to the relay
station. However—"
She paused to stare curiously at Randall, who was still scrutinizing
the sky. Stewart wondered momentarily whether the director might
not be wrestling with a morbid fear of the astronomical distance
separating him from home. It was possible, with Sol and Centauri far
less prominent than Aldebaran's minor companions in the field of
brilliant stars.
"However," Carol resumed, "I'll put on a sheath and go with you. Out
there I might tap the predigital spill-off and find out whether it's
correlating and sequencing properly."
"You'd better stay aboard for a while," Randall advised. "Those
puppets haven't responded to human direction for over a year."
"You mean there might be danger?"
"Let's just say their behavior may not be entirely predictable." He
gestured toward the screen. "Like now."

The vanguard of robot explorers, led by the towering Operations Co-

ordinator, had reached the ship. The Magnetometer began darting
around one of the hydraulic fins, charting lines of isomagnetic
intensity. The Mineral Analyzer had already sunk its drill into the
broad, flat surface of the stabilizer. And the Flora Collector and
Analyzer was being boosted by the OC to the lowest spiral of the
ship's subspace drive intensifier. Deposited upon the ceramics-