His quarry carried him home and deposited his bag in its usual resting place, a moving chair that was often used for relaxation. The sphere waited, listening to the activity that was going on outside. Once it thought it felt a probing as if something had detected it and was trying to sense what it was. But it went away. Finally quiet came. The sphere carefully emerged from the bag. It had been given diagrams of its quarry's dwelling, so knew where he would be. It went towards the area called the bedroom and found him. He appeared to be sleeping soundly. The sphere waited until he rolled on his back then moved into position, extended a harvesting tube, and prepared one of its four holding chambers. It began to descend when suddenly it found itself immobile. Despite its tremendous capability for its size it could not move.
"Desist!" came a voice. "Retract that needle! Let's go out in the livingroom. They need their sleep." The sphere was quite perplexed. It knew there were only two individuals in the dwelling, but obviously a third being now had ahold of it. It decided to shut down its propulsion systems before damage was done. It found itself being moved back into the living area. There was a place called the altar with a crystal globe. The individual carrying it moved the crystal globe and sat the sphere on its pedestal.
"All right!" it's captor demanded, "What are you? Don't try to play dumb! I can sense you have communications circuits. Give!"
"I do not understand!" the sphere answered. "I have nothing to give. I am a harvesting unit. I have no capability of expelling anything." The being laughed. The sphere understood that that's what it was doing. "Beautiful machine logic!" he muttered. "No matter who makes them they're almost always the same. I want you to communicate," he continued. "Tell me why you are here and what you are doing."
"I am a harvesting unit," the sphere answered. "My makers need material from you, or, from the other part of you to make carrier units. They meant no harm. The few cells I would have removed you would have never missed."
"I most certainly would have!" the being answered. "I think I've got an idea what's going on. I'd say you have a range of about 25 miles, right?"
"Your perception is incredible!" the sphere answered.
The being walked over and opened the door. "Come on!" he snapped.
The sphere rose and followed. The being shut the door, looked down to the locking mechanism and the sphere heard it rotate. "Telekinesis," it muttered.
"Take me to your makers," the being insisted.
"I move quite rapidly," the sphere announced, "you might not be able to keep up."
"Hardly!" the being answered. "Go!"
The sphere shot away and the being followed. The sphere found the place where the shuttle was hiding. It settled into its niche and the lights immediately came on. The two attendants that were waiting woke up.
"At last!" one of them moaned. "Now we can get back to the mothership!"
"Not quite yet!" the being who had captured the sphere remarked, seeming to appear out of nowhere.
"Oh, drat!" one of the technicians remarked.
"I'm going to explain this just once!" the being continued. "You send this little guy in my direction again, I'll take your ship out into space and hurl it into the sun! And don't think I can't do it! Who are you working for?" The pilot who had been quiet in the front compartment rose and spoke. "My people, Lord Of Light," it explained.
The being looked towards him. "Oh!" he sighed. "Mechanicons, or as my friend says animated tin cans with delusions of grandeur. Now, I thought we had well established agreements and what would you want with organic samples?"
"To make more of us," one of the technicians answered. "We're rebels, criminals. We're tired of the mechanicle forms. We want truly living ones. We have learned how to make them like this, full size and functional, and put our consciousnesses in them. We wanted to make some of you, or, the other you for us to inhabit. From the samples that the harvester took we could've made thousands of individuals."
The sphere's captor shook his head. "Not a prayer, guys!" he moaned. "One of my physical form is quite enough! But look, there's two hospitals in the area. Have your little friend here go to one's testing lab. There's always a little blood left over in the tubes after they're done running tests. They just throw it away. He can get all the samples you need without violating anybody's privacy. But just make sure none of them carry my people's biosigns. If you do that I won't cause you any trouble. How'd you get by the blockade?"
"Scientific research," the pilot answered, "studying the decay of this race. Not having much success, are you?"
"No,"' the captor answered, "do we have a deal?"
"Yes!" the pilot answered. "But we do not understand the problem. All the copies we would've made would be a long ways away."
"Still," the captor answered, "no go! Now, send this little guy on his way and I'm going home. Don't give me any more trouble!"
The two technicians nodded. One of them began to type on a keyboard, then pressed a button. The sphere shot away. The being nodded and faded away. A couple of hours later the sphere's target awoke, looked around and muttered, "Mechanicons? What next?"