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having every incoming vehicle identify itself before it arrived.
The screen lit up and the round-cheeked, freckled face of a middle-aged woman
appeared in it. It was Ald, the team s dietician. She smiled pleasantly, said
in an even voice, Hello, Jeslin, went on in the same quiet, unemphasized
tone, Crash, machmen
The screen went blank.
Jeslin instantly reached out, grasped the Pointer s chase controls, spun the
machine about and sent it racing back toward the forest. Flicking on the full
set of ground and air-search screens, he studied them briefly in turn. His
heart was pounding.
There was nothing in sight at the moment to justify Ald s warning. But the
word crash, used under such circumstances, had only one meaning. The station
had been taken . . . he was to keep away from it, avoid capture and do
whatever he could to help.
Machmen Ald had been able to bring in that one additional word before they
shut her off. Jeslin knew the term.
Human beings surgically modified, equipped with a variety of devices to permit
them to function freely in environments which otherwise would be instantly
Page 93
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
deadly to a man lacking the protection of a spacesuit or ship. They were
instrumented men: machine men machmen. Jeslin had not heard of recent
experiments of the kind, but there were fairly numerous records of transitions
to the machman condition, carried out with varying degrees of success.
His mind shifted back for an instant to a report received several days before
from the Navy patrol boat assigned to
Lederet for the protection of the survey station and its personnel. The boat
had been contacted by a small I-Fleet vessel, requesting permission to carry
out limited mining operations on the planet. After checking with the station,
permission had been given. The I-Fleets were space vagrants, ordinarily
harmless; and the mining party might be able to provide valuable
information about the planet, with which they were evidently quite familiar.
The mining ship had begun its operations in a dry lakebed approximately a
thousand miles from the station.
Presumably, if machmen had captured the station, they had come over from the
ship. With a heavily armed patrol boat circling the planet, it seemed an
incredibly bold thing to do. Unless
At that moment, Jeslin saw the figure in the search screen. It was human,
appeared naked at first glance. Stretched out horizontally in the air about a
hundred feet above the ground, arms laid back along its sides like a diver, it
was approaching from the right, evidently with the intention of heading off
the Pointer before the machine reached the forest.
And it was moving fast enough to do it . . .
Jeslin stared at the apparition for an instant, more in amazement than alarm.
He saw now that the fellow was wearing trunks and boots and held some dark
object in his left hand. Possibly the last was a flight device of some kind.
Jeslin could make out nothing else to explain this headlong rush through the
air. What did seem explained, he thought, was the manner in which the station
had been taken. A handful of half-naked I-Fleet miners approaching on foot,
apparently not even armed, would have aroused no concern there. The visitors
would have been invited inside.
Jeslin glanced at the forest ahead, checked the search screens again. In the
air far to the left were three tiny dots, which might be similar figures
approaching. If so, it would take them several minutes to get here, and the
Pointer would be lost in the forest by then. The machman moving up on the
right apparently intended to attack by himself to prevent the escape
and that, Jeslin thought, was something he might turn to his advantage.
He drew a pack of plastic contact fetters out of a compartment, peeled off an
eighteen-inch length, thrust it into his pocket. He patted another pocket on
the right side of his jacket to make sure the gun he carried for last-ditch
protection against overly aggressive Lederet wildlife was inside, then
switched on the Pointer s stungun and turned the vehicle in a wide, swift
curve toward the approaching machman.
The figure shot up at a steep slant before the gun could straighten out on it.
In the screens, Jeslin watched it dart by perhaps two hundred yards overhead,
come arcing down again behind the machine. He swung the Pointer s nose back to
the forest, not more than a quarter of a mile ahead now, went rushing toward
it, watching the machman close the gap between them, coming level with the
ground a hundred yards away . . . then eighty . . . sixty . . . [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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having every incoming vehicle identify itself before it arrived.
The screen lit up and the round-cheeked, freckled face of a middle-aged woman
appeared in it. It was Ald, the team s dietician. She smiled pleasantly, said
in an even voice, Hello, Jeslin, went on in the same quiet, unemphasized
tone, Crash, machmen
The screen went blank.
Jeslin instantly reached out, grasped the Pointer s chase controls, spun the
machine about and sent it racing back toward the forest. Flicking on the full
set of ground and air-search screens, he studied them briefly in turn. His
heart was pounding.
There was nothing in sight at the moment to justify Ald s warning. But the
word crash, used under such circumstances, had only one meaning. The station
had been taken . . . he was to keep away from it, avoid capture and do
whatever he could to help.
Machmen Ald had been able to bring in that one additional word before they
shut her off. Jeslin knew the term.
Human beings surgically modified, equipped with a variety of devices to permit
them to function freely in environments which otherwise would be instantly
Page 93
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
deadly to a man lacking the protection of a spacesuit or ship. They were
instrumented men: machine men machmen. Jeslin had not heard of recent
experiments of the kind, but there were fairly numerous records of transitions
to the machman condition, carried out with varying degrees of success.
His mind shifted back for an instant to a report received several days before
from the Navy patrol boat assigned to
Lederet for the protection of the survey station and its personnel. The boat
had been contacted by a small I-Fleet vessel, requesting permission to carry
out limited mining operations on the planet. After checking with the station,
permission had been given. The I-Fleets were space vagrants, ordinarily
harmless; and the mining party might be able to provide valuable
information about the planet, with which they were evidently quite familiar.
The mining ship had begun its operations in a dry lakebed approximately a
thousand miles from the station.
Presumably, if machmen had captured the station, they had come over from the
ship. With a heavily armed patrol boat circling the planet, it seemed an
incredibly bold thing to do. Unless
At that moment, Jeslin saw the figure in the search screen. It was human,
appeared naked at first glance. Stretched out horizontally in the air about a
hundred feet above the ground, arms laid back along its sides like a diver, it
was approaching from the right, evidently with the intention of heading off
the Pointer before the machine reached the forest.
And it was moving fast enough to do it . . .
Jeslin stared at the apparition for an instant, more in amazement than alarm.
He saw now that the fellow was wearing trunks and boots and held some dark
object in his left hand. Possibly the last was a flight device of some kind.
Jeslin could make out nothing else to explain this headlong rush through the
air. What did seem explained, he thought, was the manner in which the station
had been taken. A handful of half-naked I-Fleet miners approaching on foot,
apparently not even armed, would have aroused no concern there. The visitors
would have been invited inside.
Jeslin glanced at the forest ahead, checked the search screens again. In the
air far to the left were three tiny dots, which might be similar figures
approaching. If so, it would take them several minutes to get here, and the
Pointer would be lost in the forest by then. The machman moving up on the
right apparently intended to attack by himself to prevent the escape
and that, Jeslin thought, was something he might turn to his advantage.
He drew a pack of plastic contact fetters out of a compartment, peeled off an
eighteen-inch length, thrust it into his pocket. He patted another pocket on
the right side of his jacket to make sure the gun he carried for last-ditch
protection against overly aggressive Lederet wildlife was inside, then
switched on the Pointer s stungun and turned the vehicle in a wide, swift
curve toward the approaching machman.
The figure shot up at a steep slant before the gun could straighten out on it.
In the screens, Jeslin watched it dart by perhaps two hundred yards overhead,
come arcing down again behind the machine. He swung the Pointer s nose back to
the forest, not more than a quarter of a mile ahead now, went rushing toward
it, watching the machman close the gap between them, coming level with the
ground a hundred yards away . . . then eighty . . . sixty . . . [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]