[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

dived for the control cabin to set the automatic instruments that would start
the motors, take the plane off the field, fly it straight and true to its
destination, radio for landing instructions, and set it down. Gann glanced at
the linkbox in his hands', then at Sister Delta Four.
The linkbox carried its communion plug racked in a recess in its cubical bulk.
Gann could see the bright glitter of its rounded tips that mated so perfectly
with the plate in his own skull.
If, he thought ponderously, he were to take that plug off its clip and place
Page 163
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
it into the plate in his forehead . . .
r if he were to complete his communion ... he would once again feel that
total rapture, that almost unbearable
255
ecstasy of soul and senses that he had tasted, just once, an hour before.
The temptation was overpowering.
He could understand Julie or rather, Sister Delta Four  a great deal better
now. There had never been an addiction like this one, no drug, no narcotic, no
mere alcoholic craving that was as overpowering in its appeal.
He could understand why Julie Martinet had given up family, freedom, the
pleasures of the senses, and himself for the shroud of an acolyte of the
Machine.
He could understand it, because he was all but at that point himself, after
one single exposure....
With a swift motion, before he could stop to think, he lifted the linkbox and
dashed it to the floor. It crackled and sputtered. In its static-filled
buzzing sound he could detect some of the tonal morphemes he had been taught,
but he did not give himself a chance to puzzle out their meaning, did not
allow the linkbox the time to beg for its preservation if that was its
intention.
He lifted a foot and crushed it, stamped it again and again, like a noxious
insect. Its buzzing abruptly stopped. There was a faint blue flash of electric
sparks; then it was only a mangled mass
file:///C|/2590%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20...2001-03%20-%20The%20Starchild%20
Trilogy.txt (119 of 206) [12/28/2004 10:49:11 PM]
file:///C|/2590%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20E-books/LoPL%20full%20...child%20(3
)/Starchild%2001-03%20-%20The%20Starchild%20Trilogy.txt of printed circuits
and crushed transistors.
"That's the end of that, Julie," he said. "And that's the end of our
relationship with the
Machine."
She was watching him silently, her eyes dark and incurious.
"Don't you have anything to say?" he demanded.
She pealed, "Only what I am instructed to tell youi Major Gann. The message
that was given me by the Machine."
"Damn the Machine!" he cried. "Can't you understand that's over? It's
finished. Gone! First we have to try to straighten out this mess; then maybe
then! we can think about using the Machine again. Using itl Not letting it use
usl"
"I know nothing of that, Major Gann," she sang. "I only know the message. It
follows: To Major
Gann. Action. Proceed at once to the "Togethership" on the Reefs of Space via
Mercury Terminator
Line Station Seven. Message ends."
Gann shook his head dazedly. "Julie, Julie!" he protested. "That's ridiculous
on the face of it.
Go to the Reefs by way of Mercury? That's like coming across a room by way of
... of Deneb. It's not the way at all "
256
"I don't know about that," rasped the voice of Machine General Wheeler from
behind him. Gann turned. The general was standing in the open door of the
control cabin, something hi his hand. His expression was dark and fearful,
like some trapped and dangerous creature of the jungle.
Gann said, "But Mercury is near the Sun. Even if we wanted to go to the
farthest part of the
Reefs, where we're at superior conjunction, we might go near Mercury, yes, but
we'd never land there. Not anywhere on the planet, much less at some
particular station on the terminator line."
Page 164
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
"Go there we will," rapped General Wheeler. "Land there we will. And at the
station. Major Gann! I
told you I intended to go to the Reefs at once and wanted you with me. I had a
reason. See here!
This dropped to the ground before me as I was leaving the Planner's chambers
after my ah episode with the guns."
Wordlessly Boysie Gann took the document It was a creamy square, without
signature, and on it were the words:
If you would save yourself, your people, and your worlds, bring Machine Major
Boysie Gann and yourself to the Togethership on the Reefs of Space. The
gateway will be found at the Plan of Man solar observatory on Mercury,
Terminator Station Seven.
'The Starchild!" cried Gann.
General Wheeler nodded with a harsh, mechanical up-down, up-down.
"A message from the Starchild, yes. And the same message from the Planning
Machine. Major Gann! Do you realize what this means? The Planning Machine is
the Starchildl"
13
At some point they transhipped into a Plan of Man jetless-drive cruiser. Gann
paid little attention.
He was using the time in the best way he could, to rest, to try to recover
from the shocks and stresses of the last
257
few weeks. And how  fast they had accumulated, how violently they had drained
him of strength, and of peace of mind!"
He could still feel the distant ache in his forehead, in the bones of his
skull, behind his eyes, in his sinuses  the track of the probes of the
surgeons who had implanted the communion electrodes in his brain.
He could feel the aches and bruises of his working over by the Planner's
guards. How long ago?
He was exhausted still from the battle with the pyropods and the long drop to
Earth. His weary muscles still bore the fatigue poisons of his fight on Harry
Hickson^'s reeflet... [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]