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    experimenting on her own body. Medical stores showed a gradual depletion of
    serotonin and adrenalin fractions.
    Flattery thought of the neuro-regulatory shifts, the psychic aches that would
    arise from manipulating body chemistry in this fashion. Prue's moods and
    strange behavior became clearer to him.
    He stood up, retrieved the emergency medical pack from its clips on the
    bulkhead, saw that Timberlake had taken over on the big board.
    What difference does it make if I save her? Flattery asked himself. But he
    returned his attention once more to the comatose woman, began ministering to
    her. He kept on checking her condition as he worked. No broken bones. No
    evidence of external injury he could detect through her suit.
    Timberlake had ignored Prudence after the first glance. She was Flattery's
    problem. He had darted across to his action couch, snifted the big board,
    keyed first for open circuits.
    There was a sense of dullness in the equipment. He had to wait while servos
    hummed slowly about their work, while circuits balked and produced sluggish
    results.
    He could feel his own hairline awareness of every control and instrument, his
    consciousness keyed up by necessity. The interrelation of every device in
    this room and throughout the ship was like a complicated ballet, a pattern
    growing simpler and simpler in his mind even through its slowness.
    Timberlake made a delicate adjustment in hull-shield control, saw the
    resultant temperature change register on his instruments as a power shift in
    the radiation-cell accumulators, a minuscule shift of weight in the
    ship-as-a-whole brought about by adjustment in mass-temperature-proton
    balance.
    But how slow it was. And growing slower.
    Timberlake swung his computer board to his left side, keyed for diagnosis, got
    no response.
    Telltales were winking out on the big board. With an increasing sense of
    frenzy, Timberlake fought to find the trouble.
    Dead circuits.
    No answers.
    Keys on the main console began locking. No power in their circuits.
    The last light winked out. Every key on the board was locked tight, all the
    servos silent. There was no whisper of air-circulation fans, no pulse of life
    to be felt in the ship. Slowly, Timberlake swung his gaze to the right,
    staring at the hyb-tank repeaters. The lights were dead, but the physical
    analogue gauges still showed feeder fluids flowing in the gross ducts of the
    system. Room lights flickered as local battery circuits took over the job of
    illumination.
    The hyb-tank occupants were not dead . . . yet, Timberlake thought. Whatever
    the settings had been when the board went dead, that was the balance remaining
    for each tank -- as long as the auxiliary accumulators throughout the ship
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    retained some power . . . as long as the pump motors kept running.
    But the delicate feedback control and adjustment was gone.
    Timberlake eased himself out of the action couch, looked around the oddly
    quiet Com-central. The only sound was Flattery working to revive Prudence.
    Her eyelids fluttered and Timberlake thought bitterly: What good does it do
    to save her? We're dead.
    Flattery sat back on his heels. I've done all I can for her, he thought. Now
    . . .
    He grew conscious of the stillness in the room, looked up at the dead console,
    shot a questioning stare at Timberlake.
    "Bickel's really done it this time," Timberlake said. "No power . . .
    computer off. Everything's dead."
    All I need do is wait, Flattery thought. Without power, the ship will die.
    But the effort of reviving Prudence had softened his determination. Living,
    after all, held its attractions -- even if they were only a ship full of
    culture-grown flesh, clones, duplicates, expendable units.
    "You are human types, never doubt that," Hempstead had insisted. "You were
    grown from selected cell cultures of select candidates. Clones are merely
    good common sense. We don't want to lose people if the ship has to be
    destroyed . . . as the others were. We can send you out again and again."
    But if the ship died this way, it might not leave its capsule record to help
    the ones who came after . . . the next try.
    "How is she?" Timberlake asked. He nodded toward Prudence.
    "I think she will recover."
    "To what?" Timberlake asked. "Do you want to go see what's wrong with
    Bickel?"
    "Why bother?"
    The question with its tone of utter submission to fate sent anger surging
    through Timberlake.
    "Give up if you want, but if Bickel's alive he may know what he's done . . .
    and how to repair it." He pushed himself away from the couch, headed for the
    hatch to quarters.
    "Wait," Flattery said. Timberlake's rejection had stung him and he found this
    surprising.
    Have I acquired a new taste for living? Flattery wondered. God -- what is Thy
    will?
    "You keep an eye on Prue," Flattery said. "It was chemical shock. She should
    stay quiet and warm. I have her suit heaters turned up. Leave them that . .
    ."
    He broke off as the hatch from quarters slowly opened.
    Bickel stumbled through it, would have fallen had he not caught a stanchion.
    A charred block of plastic slipped from his hands, tumbled to the deck. He
    ignored it, clung to the stanchion.
    Flattery studied him. There were dark smudges beneath Bickel's eyes. His
    skin was powder white. His cheeks showed skull depressions as though they had
    wasted away in months of fasting. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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