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pulled back from where they had seemed to grow right out of the roof. They hadn't. When they moved
away, they revealed shiny metallic things that were definitely not a bit old. Even more definitely, they were
traversing toward our orbiting lander. Most definitely of all, they were particle-beam weapons very like
the ones that Thor Hammerhurler kept poised for any possible problem with the Kugelblitz.
VI
There are times when being a machine intelligence is of great value. This was one of them. While the
deadly barrels crept around to point at us we had plenty of time to analyze the problem, consider
alternatives and oh, in as many as 210 or 225 milliseconds, perhaps even a few more decide what to
do about it.
It wasn't just the two of us discussing the matter. The Kugel showed himself, in his crazy-quilt melange of
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features, almost at once just about the time Harry had yelped, "Get us the hell away from here!"
Whether the Kugel heard what Harry said or not I don't know. He certainly didn't respond to it. What
he said, almost shaking with some emotion I could not recognize, was, "It is an obscenity! This place was
thoroughly sterilized! We are greatly displeased that it is populated once more!"
I did a double take, struck by the queerness of the fact that that travesty of a person was actually
displaying feelings. Then enlightenment dawned.
"This is it, isn't it?" I cried. "This is why you wanted to come here, because somehow or other you found
out there was someone alive on the planet?"
I thought for a moment he was actually going to answer that, because there was a perceptible hesitation
before the image of the Kugels slowly broke up into a shimmer of dots of light and was gone. That didn't
matter. I knew I was right, and so did Harry.
It worried him, too. "What's he talking about, Markie?" he demanded. "You don't think he's planning to
do some more sterilizing on those guys, do you?"
"I hope not," I said. "Maybe he can't. When the Kugels were killing everybody off, it took the whole
bunch of them, not just a little clump like we've got here."
Harry pondered over that. "So how did they do it, when they were doing it?"
Well, now, that was a good question. It might even have been the question we'd been sent here to
answer. "Let's ask," I said, and said to the air, "Kugel? Can you tell us how your people sterilized this
planet?"
I didn't think he was going to answer at first. Then slowly the figure coalesced. "We were displeased by
chemical creatures which seemed to show intelligent behavior, so we took action," he said.
"Right, Kugel," I said, trying to be patient. "What was that action, exactly?"
"We caused their chemical functions to terminate," he said. As though that meant anything. "We
deactivated every matter-based creature that was larger than " he hesitated "your pedal extremity."
"And how did you do that, exactly?" Harry put in.
Maybe that was a mistake. Maybe the Kugels would have answered the question if I had been the one
to ask it. I hadn't, though. He didn't disappear, he just froze. By which I meanfroze, without any motion
at all.
Harry tried waving a hand in front of the creature's face, without response. "Shit," he said in disgust.
"They're just goddamrude, don't you think?"
"I do think that, Harry," I said. "But perhaps we should consider our present situation." Because nearly a
hundred of our milliseconds had gone by, and those ugly weapon snouts were getting closer and closer to
our line of fire.
Recalled to the realities of the case, Harry swallowed. "Maybe we should go," he said nervously.
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"Maybe," I agreed, "but first I want to see what there is here." What I was looking for was the human
beings that occupied the castle. I was using infrared to pick up body heat, if any....
And then, for a moment, I thought I had found them. In a little meadow next to the pond some scruffy
people were disconsolately feeding from a clump of berry bushes.
I said "people." That's an exaggeration. They were biped, yes. Maybe they were even primate. But
people they were not. At magnification they turned out to be hairier and nakeder and a lot more
stupid-looking than any organic human in my experience had ever been. Whatever they were, they were
definitely not the builders of this castle.
Harry looked at the scene; looked at me, looked at the Kugel. He got no clue from the Kugel, who
stood still in a sense never applicable to any organic being: still wasstill for the Kugels simulation, with no
motion at all of any kind. Harry retreated to me. "Maybe we should get closer," he volunteered.
I pointed out the flaw in his argument. "They'll blow us up."
"Oh," he said, squinting down at the weapons that still were tracking toward us. He then had an alternate
suggestion. "Let's get the hell out of here, okay?" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] - zanotowane.pl
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