There is nowhere lonelier than the vast, unexplored tracts of space. There, among the stars and the infinity of the void, there is no sound, and even if there were, there is no-one there to hear it. Even the nearest stars, twinkling welcomingly when viewed from earth, are so far from our world that it would take a man most of his lifetime just to reach the nearest one. It is cold, dark and unwelcoming; an airless ocean of loneliness for the unwary traveller.
RIGS felt lonely too, which might be expected, except for the fact that RIGS wasn"t human. The initials which made up the name stood for Robotic Intelligence Gathering System, and RIGS had been travelling in space for almost two hundred years. How could a robot be lonely? The answer was quite simple. RIGS had been programmed not only
