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the very existence of the station and the watchers was something they had
never expected, and they needed to discover not only if it was still active,
but whether it was an isolated thing or a possible prototyped
"But your people killed everybody*." Modra pointed out. "Even the ship!"
We suspect they killed the others simply because, otherwise, there would have
been much resistance when the ships of those you call the Mycohl and Mizlaplan
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showed up. It lacks subtlety, but they were doing what they had to do. In any
event, more cymols would have come and most certainly killed all the
researchers there in any case to prevent this from leaking out. >
"Our people don't do that kind of thing!" Modra protested.
removed. He knows what they are really like, and, believe us in this, they are
but pale shadows reflecting their masters. We submit ourselves for comparison
with them.>
She turned. "Jimmy? What the hell are they talking about?"
He sighed. "I blocked it out selectively, not only from my own mind but from
the
Durquist's. It was his request, really, if it was possible, to spare you,
after we discovered that we all now were telepathic. It's not pleasant."
"It's about Tris, isn't it?"
He nodded.
"Go ahead, I can take it."
His memories flowed to her, and for a brief time she was back on the rain
world again, this time seeing things from Jimmy's own experiences, while she'd
been a prisoner of the Mizlaplanians. Gun Roh Chin had felled the entire
Exchange group with a wide stun shot, but hadn't been able to keep Lankur down
with it. He'd given the cymol a slightly stronger shot at close range to knock
him out, and he'd done damage.
Tris Lankur suddenly sat up, then slowly got to his feet, but in a jerky,
nonhuman way. In the suit, the impression of not a human being but a
mechanical man was almost absolute.
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"Well, I'll be cursed!" swore the Durquist, staring. "He really is a robot!"
"I am directing biological interface manually," said Lankur in that weird,
mechanical voice. "I am functional, but direct linkage to biologically stored
data not fully operable."
"He got real problem," Molly commented needlessly.
Jimmy couldn't help but think of his nightmare and of the metallic, swelling
brain of the pilot.
"Status reports on other units?" the cymol asked.
"We're all right I think," Jimmy told him it whatever. "You're the one that's
worse for wear."
"Second shot produced some tissue damage and electrical linkage shorts," the
cymol explained. "Essential data intact, but am unable to access Terran
simulation mode. Pre-cymol mode memories, habit patterns, not present."
Grysta commented.
now!>
Jimmy found the sight of the cymol stripped of his humanity to be very
unsettling, but there were more pressing matters. "How functional overall are
you?" he asked. "Can you make the distance? Can you fight if you have to and
hit what you aim at?"
"Full control. Limits and reflexive actions impossible to predict, but no
random or uncontrolled actions will occur. However, sensory and tactile
feedback to brain is not functional at this time."
"You mean you can't feel pain?" McCray asked him.
"I mean I can feel nothing. But the biological unit appears to function as I
direct."
Grysta commented.
get pretty ripe real soon!>
As usual, Jimmy ignored her. "Durquist?"
"It will have to do," the Durquist responded. "It is particularly painful for
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me to see him in this condition, since I was with him for so long, but, from a
practical sense, it's far better than broken legs or puncture wounds or the
like. What about our treacherous priests?"
Jimmy did a scan. "Ahead, of course. I think they made real time. Either that
or we were out a lot longer than Grysta thinks we were. Still, I get the odd
impression that they stopped somewhere ahead. If I were them, I'd want to get
as far away from us as they could and as fast as possible."
"Haste makes for mistakes," the Durquist commented. "Let them stop and worry
about us for a bit. Still, I would like to close and see if we can find some
shelter from this interminable rain. How are you, by the way? From the angle,
I'd say you got the full force of the first shot."
"I dreamt I died and went to Hell," the telepath said slowly. "Then I woke up
and found I was already there." He looked at the stiff, jerky body of Tris
Lankur.
The fact was, he wasn't sure any more. He wasn't sure of anything except that
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Marathon%203%20-%20Ninety%20Trillion%20.txt they were in the middle of a
miserable world of gloom and constant, heavy rain, and he didn't know why he
was there or how the hell to get out.
Listening to those omnipresent shrieks and moans, though, and still with vivid
memories of his dreams, he definitely decided that he didn't want to die right
now, no matter how miserable he was.
"Let's close on them," he said at last. "I want them to know we're there."
It took them less than an hour along the obsidian-encrusted black rock trail
before they were very close indeed. McCray climbed almost to the edge of the
trail and looked out at the great falls. Still, when Tris and Molly both made
to keep walking, he stopped them. "They're there. Waiting for us, most
likely," he warned them. "There's no cover for us down there on the edge of
the falls, either."
The Durquist agreed. "If there is some overhang or ruins right against the
side here, that's where I'd be. Waiting for us to step out and be shot right
over those falls."
"This unit, McCray, and Durquist have two directional grenades each. Enemy
does not or it would have used them in first battle," Lankur noted.
"But Modra's with them!" the Durquist reminded him. "We'd get her, too!"
"No logical way to recover Modra," the cymol responded. "Probabilities of
doing so under this situation very small. Modra now just makes the Mizlaplan
invaders the strongest group. Logical to eliminate them all. Advantage then
returns to us."
"But that's Modra down there! Modra!" the Durquist exclaimed, appalled. Even
Jimmy McCray, the newcomer, had problems with this kind of logic.
"Getting the bastards who screwed us is one thing," he said evenly, trying to
hold his temper, "but I draw the line at the murder of one of our own."
"Without that action, a stalemate results and the Mycohl go on unencumbered by
default," the cymol pointed out. "We cannot proceed without being ambushed by
the Mizlaplanians. Mizlaplanians cannot proceed because we have a clear field
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