[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
station's electronic wits, which Hoveler acknowledged having done,
would keep anyone from immediately laying hands on any particular specimen.
Gathering his troops around him, Dirac issued a firm order to the effect
that there would be no general evacuation of the station until the
question of his protochild had been resolved.
Neither of the surviving bioworkers, having endured so much and done what they
had done, all to defend the protocolonists, was ready to abandon them now.
And everyone else now aboard the station, with the possible exception of
Page 93
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Kensing, was accustomed to taking orders from Dirac.
Dirac, making sure that regular contact was maintained with
Nick back on the
Eidolon and having posted sentries at key locations on the station to
watch for any berserker counterattack, took time out to watch a video showing
his wife's arrival at the station a few days ago. He saw for himself
the publicity opportunity that had turned into a panic as soon as the alert
was
called.
The color coding on the tile was barely discernible in some of the views. But
with the retrieval system scrambled as it was, that was probably going to be
of no help in finding it.
Hawksmoor had rather quickly made the decision to sabotage the yacht's drive
and then to report it as malfunctioning, limited to low maneuvering power
only. Of course he blamed the trouble on the recent enemy action. He'd
done a thorough job of the disabling, but not so thorough that he would
be unable to quickly put things back in their proper order if and when
that became necessary-as he confidently expected that it would, sooner
or later.
But probably not for a long time, Nick computed. Not until after he
had managed to provide the Lady Genevieve with the living flesh her
happiness demanded. And even after he had somehow arranged matters so he
could use all the facilities of the biostation without hindrance, that was
probably going to take years.
He didn't really want to make all these other fleshly people suffer,
to disrupt their lives and in effect hold them prisoner.
Especially not here, where they were almost within the grasp of a monster
berserker that was probably still half alive. But what choice did he
have?
Nick had to admit that the complexities of the whole situation were beginning
to baffle him.
No, it wasn't fair, that the burden of others' lives should thus be placed
upon him. He was supposed to be a pilot and an architect, not a philosopher.
Not a political or spiritual or military leader.
Not& not a lover and seducer.
He was able to cushion himself against this resentment and
uncertainty only by telling himself that his fretting over these
insoluble problems offered strong evidence that whatever means
his programmers had used in his creation, they had made him truly
human.
NINE
There was something about that last fragmentary message from
Frank Marcus-chiefly the tone
-which Nick found himself still pondering.
When he brought the message to the attention of Dirac and the others, the
Premier listened once to the recording and then basically dismissed it.
"Humans often call upon God, some kind of god, in their last moments, Nick. Or
so I'm told. Sad, tragic, like our other losses, but I wouldn't make too much
of it. That's probably just the death
Marcus would have chosen for himself. In fact, in a very real sense
I'd say that he did choose it."
"Yes, sir." But Hawksmoor was unable to dismiss the matter as easily as his
organic master did.
Page 94
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
There were other pressing urgencies no one could dismiss.
During the skirmish just past, the great berserker in crushing
Frank's scoutship had demonstrated that it still possessed formidable
short-range weapons, including the force-field grapples that had
evidently pulled Frank in to his doom. The remaining small craft and
the yacht itself would have to be kept at a safe distance from the berserker;
of course no one could say with any confidence just what distance that might
be.
Some of the debris from the space fight remained visible for almost an
hour after the boarding, bits of junk metal and other substances swirling
delicately in space, caught near the scene by some short-lived balance of
incidental forces. But in an hour the last of this wreckage had gone, blown
away in the vanishing faint wind of the ships'
joint passage through
never-quite-completely-empty space.
Every day, every hour as the hurtling cluster of objects drew closer to the
depths of the Mavronari, the space through which they traveled, still
vacuum by the standards of planetary atmosphere, was a little less empty
than before.
Now space within several thousand kilometers in all directions indeed showed
void of all small craft and machines, unpopulated by either friends or
foes. Nicholas still stood guard faithfully, trying to decide whether he
wanted the fleshly people to make themselves at home on the station
or not, beginning to ponder what his own course of action was going to be
in either case.
He could keep his post alertly enough now with half an eye, and far less
than half a mind. He was free to spend more than half his time with Jenny.
Joyfully, as soon as he had the chance, he awakened her with news of victory.
When Jenny came out of her bedroom again to talk to Nick, walking with him
in the cool, dim vastness of the Abbey, she said: "So long as we
remain nothing but clouds of light, hailstorms of electrons, all you and I can
ever do is pretend to please each other, and pretend to be pleased. Maybe that
would be enough for you. It could never be enough for me."
"Then, my lady, it cannot be enough for me either. No, Jenny, I
want to be with you. I will be with you in one way or another, and I will make
you happy."
The intensity in the lady's gaze made her eyes look enormous.
"Then the two of us must have flesh. There is no other way."
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]