He'd been considering stalling while he demanded exactly such things. He
was reasonably sure by now that they had no transistors, signal
generators, frequency meters or whatever else he could demand. He could
make quite an issue out of the need to determine the characteristic
impedance of their sky. That might even be interesting, at that; would
it be anywhere near 300 ohms here? But it seemed that stalling wasn't
going to work. They'd given him what they expected him to need, and he'd
have to be careful to need only what they expected, or they might just
decide he wasn't Dave Hanson.

"I can't work on this stuff here," he said.

"Then why didn't you say so?" she asked sharply. She let out a cry and a
raven came flying in. She whispered something to it, frowned, and then
ordered it off. "There's no surface transportation available, and all
the local rocs are in use. Well, we'll have to make do with what we
have."

She darted for the outer office, rummaged in a cabinet, and came back
with a medium-sized rug of worn but gaudy design. Bad imitation Sarouk,
Dave guessed. She tossed it onto the largest cleared space, gobbled
some outlandish noises, and dropped onto it, squatting near one end.
Behind her, the dull clod picked up the sample of sky and fell to his
face on the rug. At her vehement signal, Dave squatted down beside her,
not daring to believe what he was beginning to guess.

The carpet lifted uncertainly. It seemed to protest at the unbalanced
weight of the sky piece. She made the sounds again, and it rose
reluctantly, curling up at the front, like a crazy toboggan. It moved
slowly, but with increasing speed, sailed out of the office through the