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An excess of caution, no insult intended. Nevertheless, an insult. And you ask me to go to a world that no self-respecting citizen willingly visits. They re citizens on Madder Loss, too. She closed her eyes and shook her head. How long do we stay? Not long. You drop me there and leave at your own pleasure. Page 38 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html Tritch was finding this harder and harder to believe. I will ask no more questions, she said, and tucked the bottle under her arm. Apparently Planch was no longer so attractive to her, and henceforth their relationship would be strictly professional. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html Planch regretted this, but only slightly. When he delivered Lodovik Trema to Madder Loss, he would be a very wealthy man, and he would never have to work for anyone again. He imagined buying his own luxury vessel--one that he could keep in tip-top condition, which was more than could be said for most Imperial ships. As for the strange and tightly disciplined man in the hold, a man who could stay enclosed in a coffin for days without complaint or need... The less he thought about that, the better. Lodovik lay in the darkness, fully alert but quiescent, having heard the coded phrase that alerted him to Daneel s participation in his rescue. He was to cooperate fully with Mors Planch; eventually, he would be brought back to Trantor. What would happen to him there, Lodovik did not know. Having performed three self-checks in the coffin-shaped box, he was reasonably certain that his positronic brain had been altered in subtle ways. The results of his self-checks were contradictory, however. To keep himself from deteriorating through disuse, he activated his human emotional overlay and ran diagnostics on that, as well. It seemed intact; he could operate as a human in human society, and that provided some relief. However, the contact with Mors Planch on the bridge of the Spear of Glory had been too brief for him to try out these functions. Best to be kept isolated until a more thorough test could be performed. Above all, he must not reveal himself to be a robot. For all the robots in Daneel s cadres, this was of paramount importance. It was essential that humans never learn the extent to which robots had infiltrated their societies. Lodovik put his human overlay into the background and began a complete memory check. To do so, he had to shut down his control of external motion for twenty seconds. He could still see and hear, however. It was at this moment that something bumped against the box. He heard fumbling outside, then the sound of metal scraping against metal. The seconds ticked by...five, seven, ten... The lid of the box was pried open with a metallic groan. With his head turned to one side, half facing the wall of the box, he could only gather a blurry glimpse of one face peering in, and a fleeting impression of one other. Eighteen seconds...the memory check was almost complete. He certainly looks dead. A woman s voice. The memory check ended, but he decided to remain still. His eyes are open. A male voice, not that of Mors Planch. Turn him over and look for identification, the woman said. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html Sky, no! You do it. It s your bounty. The woman hesitated. His skin is pink. Radiation burns. No, he looks healthy. He s dead, the man said. He s been in this box for a day and a half. No air. He just doesn t look like a corpse. She reached in and pinched the tissue of his exposed hand. Cool, but not cold. Lodovik blanched his skin slowly, and dropped his external temperature to Page 39 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html match the ambient. He felt inefficient and incompetent for not having done that earlier. He looks pale enough to me, the man remarked. Another hand touched his skin. He s cold as ice. You re imagining things. Dead or whatever he may be, he s worth a fortune, the woman said. I know Mors Planch by reputation, Trin, the man said. He won t just hand his prize over to you. Lodovik, on his conveyance into the rescue ship, had heard the name Trin applied to a woman he gathered was second-in-command to the captain, Tritch. This could be a very serious situation. Take his picture, Trin said. I ll get a message out this sleep and we ll learn if he s the one they want. A camera was lifted over the box and silently recorded his image. Lodovik tried to model all the possible causes for this behavior, all the scenarios and their potential outcomes. Besides, Tritch has given her word to Planch, the man continued. She s known to be honorable. If we succeed, we ll make ten times what Planch is paying Tritch, Trin said tightly. We could buy our own ship and become free traders on the periphery. Never have to deal with Imperial taxes or inspections again. Maybe even go to work in a free system. Pretty rough territories, I hear, the man said. Freedom is always dangerous, Trin said. All right. We re here. We ve broken the seals on the box. We re committed. Make an incision in his scalp and let s get what we came for. The man withdrew what sounded like a scalpel from his pocket. Lodovik activated his eyes and watched them in the dim light of the hold. The man swore under his breath and brought the scalpel down. Lodovik could not allow himself to be cut. He would bleed from any superficial wound, but even an untrained eye would see that he was not human if the scalpel cut deep. Lodovik quickly calculated all the pluses and minuses of any particular action he might take, and arrived at the optimal, based on what he knew. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html His arm shot up from the box. His hand wrapped around the wrist of the man with the scalpel. Hello, Lodovik said, and rose to a sitting position. The man seemed to have a fit. He jerked and shrieked and tried to pull his hand away, then shrieked again. His eyes rolled up to show nothing but white and foam appeared on his lips. For several seconds he twitched in Lodovik s grasp, as Lodovik appraised the situation from his new perspective. Trin backed toward the hatchway. She looked terrified, but not as terrified as the man in his grip. Lodovik judged the man s condition and carefully removed the scalpel from his [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |