Richard Wilson

“ Ernest said. "It begins to look as if the people were deliberately killed, or committed suicide, all at once, when we hove into sight. But why?"
"You tell me," Rosco said. "That sounds like your department."
But Ernest could tell him nothing until after the lieutenant came back with a long slender cylinder enclosing a seemingly endless coil of fine wire. ”

“ Doc said cautiously, "though it would seem safe to assume it, since we've found dust everywhere people could be expected to be. What we need is a whole corpse."
While patrols were out looking for bodies Rosco tested his theory by sending a radio signal from one of the towers and watching a feeble reaction in the dust.
"If we can assume that they were people," Rosco said, "they apparently communicated over distances by personalized radio. Maybe through a mechanism built into the skull. Would that mean there wouldn't be any written language, Ernest?" ”

“ In one home they found a heap of the gray stuff in front of a cookstove which was still warm, and another heap on a chair and on the floor under the chair. It was as if a woman and the man for whom she'd been preparing a meal had gone poof, in an instant. ”

“ Ernest said. "It's pretty tragic, in any number of ways. In the first place, as Rosco suspected, they communicated by radio. But they had no privacy and couldn't hide anything from anybody. They were always listened in on by the big boys in the palace."
"How do you know?"
"By the coil I worked from. It's a listening-storing device. These aren't official records I've transcribed; they're the everyday expressions of everyday people. ”

“ A parrot might fool you into thinking it had intelligence of its own, if you didn't know anything about parrots, but after a while you'd realize it was just a mimic. Right, Andy?"
The puppet-like creature hummed again and Ernest listened, gesturing the lieutenant to be quiet. ”

“ The swarm he'd kept in his cabin was small but the bees were gregarious and were as likely to be found in the recreation room as in their hive. So when Craddock and the paraphernalia he'd collected over the decades had debarked, the rest of the crew sighed in collective relief and the skipper went looking for a replacement.
Ernest Hotaling, fresh out of Ganymede U., was the only man qualified, on the record, for the job. He had the necessary languages and his doctorate was in psychology, though his specialty was child therapy. ”

“ Rosco said, "then why weren't these—stillbirths, whatever you want to call them—turned to dust like the others?"
"Because they'd never been activated," Doc said. "You can't blow a fuse if it isn't screwed in. Skipper, I've seen about all my stomach can stand for now. I suppose I'm a hell of a queasy sawbones, but these—things—are too much like human beings for me to take much more of them at the moment."
"Come on back," the skipper said. "I don't feel too sturdy myself."
Ernest Hotaling was writing verse in his cabin when the lieutenant intercommed him. ”

“ But on the other hand it may still be linked directly to the Masters."
"Good point," the skipper said. "Give it a run-through for what it's worth. If it does give us a line on where they got to, I'll ask the Flagship for permission to track them down."
Doc Braddon said to Ernest: "You said the Masters were godlike. You're not implying anything supernatural?"
"No. That was the androids' view, not mine. As a race of almost-people created in a laboratory they naturally held their creators in a certain awe. They hoped for liberation, and even tried to do something about it ”

“ At the same instant the lights on the nightside of the planetoid went out. The film showed that the road movement the skipper had seen stopped then, too.
Ernest tried to analyze the signals reproduced on the film. He had small success. If they represented a language, it would take years before he could even guess what they meant. The only thing he was sure of was that the signals, just before they died, had become a thousand times more powerful.
"Maybe that's what killed them," Rosco said. ”

“ The other three command the flow."
"Like a busy signal?" asked the skipper.
"Very much like one," Ernest said, pleased by the skipper's comprehension. "On the other hand, they always got the messages from the palace. These took priority over all other traffic and were apt to come at any time of the day or night. The people were just one big captive audience."
"What about the dust? That seems to be a recurring theme in those jingles of yours."
"It is." Ernest quoted:
"Dust is he and dust his brother ”