"It's well established now that the way you put a question often determines not only the answer you'll get, but the type of answer possible. So. a mechanical answerer, geared to produce the ultimate revelations in reference to anything you want to know, might have unsuspected limitations."
A stellar communications repairman is sent to repair a beacon on a planet, and discovers that its presence had a profound influence on the planet in question. Needing to deal with a locally evolved sentience and a bizarre ritual, the repairman needs to use his best plan to complete his mission and end up alive and whole too.
When overwhelming danger is constantly present, of course a man is entitled to have a bodyguard. The annoyance was that he had to do it himself. and his body would not cooperate!
When you have an engine with no fuel, and fuel without an engine, and a life-and-death deadline to meet, you have a problem indeed. Unless you are a stubborn Dutchman--and Jan Van Artevelde was the stubbornest Dutchman on Venus.
