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sample of blood from the female life-unit, the Co-ordinator ordered itself
moved to the control room of the goodlife ship. There it established itself in
direction control of all important ship's systems. A few nanoseconds'
difference in reaction time could be crucial in space combat, and the odds
were overwhelming that intense space combat was imminent. The badlife proving
grounds could not be so nearly defenseless as they seemed. But the
Co-ordinator was going to have powerful help. Its programming informed it that
the time was at hand when all available reserves must be risked in an attempt
to take control of or destroy the life-unit designated Michel Geulincx.
From the start of its long, clandestine journey to Sol System, the
Co-ordinator had carried in its unliving memory detailed information on every
known local resource that it might be able to call upon for help when it
arrived. The resources that made the present plan look feasible were the
combat units that had long ago been hidden on Oberon, in anticipation of the
day when Sol System itself could be successfully attacked. Six berserker
fighting ships of intermediate class, with their auxiliary robots and
machines, had been secretly cached there decades before the badlife had
established their proving grounds in the same region. The six ships had
originally been intended, by the master berserker computers sometimes known to
humanity as the Directors, to form one small squadron of the armada required
for a successful assault on Earth itself. But now the Directors' agent had
been instructed that seizure of Michel Geulincx had as high a priority as
destruction of the badlife homeworld itself.
Correct timing was, as usual, essential. The possibly valuable female captive
was secured in a cabin all records of human behavior indicated that immature
life-units such as Michel
Geulincx were often greatly dependent upon parental units. The
possibly-still-valuable goodlife units were assigned chairs, protected by
emergency webbings, in the control room.
The berserker, now in complete control of the ship, ignored the signals of the
human guard-
ship that had now begun a moderately fast course of interception. In a range
of frequencies that ranged from light to radio waves the Co-ordinator fired
toward Oberon a quick burst of code, information enormously condensed. This
message roused the sleeping fighters hidden there and at the same time
programmed them with the tactical necessities of the new situation.
The battle following, most of it fought on and around the Mirandan surface,
was sharp but short. With an electronic analog of satisfaction, the
Co-ordinator observed the rapid disabling of local resistance. The patrol
craft were beaten off, the one spaceborne scoutship knocked down and crippled,
the operations building effectively isolated inside the stubborn knot of its
automated defenses. It would be hours before the very large human forces
routinely posted elsewhere in Sol System could reach the scene. Indeed, it
would be hours before they knew that anything was amiss.
With the Michel Geulincx unit captured, as well as the weapons system it had
been using, both life-unit and weapon appearing essentially undamaged, the
Co-ordinator had achieved the highest-priority goals for which it had been
programmed. To remain near Miranda for even the short time necessary to
expunge all remaining life from the satellite would have meant risking this
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great success, as very strong and persistent pursuit had to be expected.
Therefore the Coordinator ordered immediate departure. In the center of a
protective formation made up of the three surviving berserker warcraft, the
goodlife ship under the Co-
ordinator's direct control departed the Uranian system at maximum practical
acceleration and roughly in the direction of solar north, along a line where
it could be computed that interception would be least probable.
As the goodlife aboard were instructed to divest themselves of acceleration
harness, a premature celebration broke out among them, which the Coordinator
at once quelled with a few spoken words. There was no time; there was business
that needed urgently to be conducted and in which their help would be used. It
was possible that the weapons system code-named Lancelot had been designated
to self-destruct somehow when captured. Or it might rapidly deteriorate from
some other cause. Therefore an immediate examination of the system, and some
preliminary testing of it, was essential.
Even cushioned in a berth and isolated in a cabin, Elly Temesvar had no
difficulty in recognizing a space battle when the ship in which she rode was
thrust into the middle of one.
The timing and the roughness of the c-plus jumps were unmistakable, as were
the sounds with which the hull around her rang. They were certainly not the
sounds of a routine boarding from an armed patrol craft, which was what she
had been expecting.
Before being introduced to the Co-ordinator, she had thought herself to be in
the hands of a small group of people of psychotic audacity but quite limited
intelligence. The presence of an authentic berserker as their leader changed
these estimates completely. Still, it had seemed almost incredible that her
captors should have on call enough armed force to mount a successful raid
against the Uranian proving grounds this was Sol System, after all!
But there was no denying what she heard and felt. While the hull still rang
with nearby shooting, there came an additional grating vibration that told
Elly the ship was down on the rocky surface of some Uranian satellite.
Airlocks were cycled and recycled several times.
Minutes later, the fighting died away, and with a last scraping of her hull
the goodlife vessel was off into space again, on what course Elly had no way
of guessing. Then her heart sank as human voices, the goodlife voices on the
ship, were raised in a brief burst of jubilation.
After a timeless interval of apparently peaceful flight, the door to Elly's
prison-cabin was opened once again. Without surprise, but still with a shock
that seemed almost to stop her heart, she saw a man-sized robot enter. Through
her mind passed images, not entirely repellent, of quick death. Her pale body
thrown out from an airlock&
But the machine was not killing her. After undoing the ties that held her to
the bunk, it simply stood back, gesturing with one human-shaped hand toward
the open door. She got to her feet and on uncertain legs moved the other way
instead, toward the cabin's small sanitary alcove. It did not stop her, but it
followed closely, staying within reach of her and watching her every movement
closely.
Having her privacy violated by a machine was not at all the same as suffering
the same offense from a human being, though in some obscure way she felt it
ought to be. The discovery that her fate was not, after all, to be instant
death was enough to make her a little giddy with relief. She kept the thing
waiting a moment longer while she rinsed her hands and got a drink of water.
Then she offered no argument or resistance when it took her by the wrist and
tugged her out into the narrow corridor. Their flight was still steady and
smooth, the artificial gravity constant. For most of the short walk to the
control room the machine that led
Elly followed another, similar robot. This one was carrying a small human
form, fair-haired, in an orange costume of some kind. At her first glimpse of
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the face, Elly thought: The boy from the picture. At least there was a
considerable resemblance.
Her own biological son? Michel? It must be, if any of this was going to make
sense. But the idea aroused no feeling at all within her.
The small ship's control room was somewhat larger than Elly had expected. It
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