[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
subtle and familiar sounds of Com-central worried at the edges of Prudence's
awareness.
For the past half-hour, Bickel had been fussing through the schematics,
plotting his way into the computer, sharing parts of his plan with the others.
She had come to dislike the sound of the schematics being shuffled.
There were tensions here that she did not fully understand, but her own role
remained clear -- mediate and goad . . . mediate and goad.
The common stench of Com-central carried an acridity which she identified as
fear.
We have a chance at glory, she told herself. Very few people ever have that
opportunity.
It was an empty pep talk, forever confronted by that inescapable fact:
I am not people.
For the first time since coming out of the hyb tank, she felt the old familiar
pain-of-wonder, asking herself what it might have been like to have been born
into a normal family in the normal way, to have grown up in the noisy,
intimate belonging of the unchosen.
"You are the cream, the select few," Morgan Hempstead and his cohorts had kept
reminding them. But they all knew where the cream had originated. Normal
biopsy tissue from a living human volunteer had been suspended in an axolotl
tank, the genetic imprint triggered and the flesh allowed to grow. It
produced an identical twin -- an expendable twin.
Select few! she thought. Something precious was taken from us and the
compensations were inadequate.
She tuned the small screen at the corner of her board to one of the tail eyes,
looked back toward the center of the solar system, toward the planet that had
spawned them.
A stabbing pang of homesickness tightened her breast, made breathing difficult
for a moment.
They had been molded and motivated, twisted, trained and inhibited -- wound up
like mechanical toys and sent scooting off into the darkness with their laser
"whistle" tooting to let UMB know where they were.
And where are we? she asked herself as she blanked the screen.
"Prue, you'd better take the big board," Flattery said. "You'd normally
follow John."
Sight of the big board's dials and gauges filled her with an abrupt anger and
fear. She felt the immediacy of the emotions in a dry throat, heat in her
cheeks.
"I . . . haven't had enough time off the board . . . to recuperate," Flattery
said, speaking hesitantly. "Or I'd --"
"It's all right," she said. "I'll take it."
She took a deep breath, leaned back, signed to Timberlake to begin the count.
The appeal to her nursing instinct did it, Flattery thought. She was ready to
Page 29
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
funk out. She had to take the board now or she might never be able to face
it.
Flattery glanced at Timberlake, saw the relief so apparent on the man's face
as he switched the green arrow to Prudence.
Timberlake, dominated by intuition, was terrified by the responsibility of
Com-central. Prudence, deep in sensation, shared that fear.
And I, because I feel their fear, overcome my own repugnance, Flattery
thought.
Only Bickel, logical and with penetrating intelligence seemed immune to these
pressures. It was a flaw in Bickel's character, Flattery thought, but he knew
their lives could depend on that flaw.
"Get the manifest and ship-loading plans, Tim," Bickel said. "I'll give you a
list of what we need from colony stores. We can set up in the computer
maintenance shop next door for easy --"
"Don't stay outside the shield area too long," Prudence said. "You'd better
key your dosimeters to repeaters in here; we'll keep an eye on you that way."
"Right," Bickel said.
He slipped off his couch, looked back at Prudence, studying her profile, the
intent way she watched the big board. He shifted his attention to Flattery,
who lay back with eyes closed, resting for his shift at the controls; then to
Timberlake, who was taking copies of the ship-loading plans from the computer
memory-bank printers.
None of them has really focused on what has to be done here, Bickel thought.
They haven't faced the fact that the simulator eventually has to be tied
directly to the computer. We'll just be building a set of frontal lobes -- if
we're successful. And our "Ox" can have but one source of experience upon
which to come alive and conscious -- the computer and its memory banks.
When they did face this fact, Bickel saw, he was going to have a fight on his
hands. Too much of the ship was almost totally dependent on the master
programs. Juggling those programs involved a kind of all-or-nothing danger.
It was a flaw in the Tin Egg's design, Bickel felt. He could see no logical
reason for it. Why should everything on the ship depend on conscious control
or intervention -- even down to the robox repair units?
Prudence sensed Bickel's attention on her, saw his face reflected in a gauge's
plastic cover. His questionings, doubts, and determination were all there for
her to read just as surely as she read the dial beneath the plastic reflector.
She had set him up -- she had done that part of her job as well as could be
expected, she thought. She focused now on the total console, feeling the
sensory pulses of the ship reaching outward to the hull skin and beyond.
Job routine was beginning to smooth off the harsh edges of her fear. She took
a deep breath, keyed a forward exterior sensor to the overhead screen, studied
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]