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"Stand for dismantling," the speaker said. Another machine rolled toward him.
Bane hesitated. Then he heard an ominous silence at the door. They were setting up for the override! He
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stood for dismantling.
Quickly, efficiently, and painlessly the machine removed his arms, legs and head. It carried these to the
big cyborg husk and installed them in the bowels of it. Then it stashed his torso in a refuse chamber in
its base. Finally it separated his head into several parts, and his perceptions became scattered. The
chamber seemed to wave crazily as one of his eyes was carried across and set into a perceptor extension.
He had no idea how it was possible for him to see while his eyes were disconnected from his head, or to
remain conscious while his head was apart from his body, but evidently it was. The machines of Proton
had strong magic!
Meanwhile, Agape was doing something; he heard fragments of the instructions to her. It seemed she
was required to melt into a new brain-container that was being set into the machine.
All this occurred extremely rapidly. In less than a minute the two of them had been installed into the
cyborg. His accurate robot time sense told him it was so, despite the subjective human impression.
The entrance to the chamber opened. Bane saw this with his two widely separated eyes, and heard it
with his buried ears. Six serfs charged in.
"Search this room!" one directed the others. "They have to be in here!"
They spread out and searched, but could not find the fugitives. They did find a panel that concealed a
service tunnel leading to another drama complex. "Check that complex!" the leader snapped. "They must
have crawled through."
Four men hurried out. But the leader was too canny to dismiss this chamber yet. "Check these machines,
too," he snapped. "Some of them are big enough to hold a body."
They checked, opening each machine and poking inside. They checked the cyborg, and found only its
brain unit and operative attachments. At length, frustrated, they departed.
DO NOT REACT. Bane saw these words appear briefly on a wall panel, and realized they were for him.
The hunt remained on; this could be a trap.
After a few minutes the speaker said: "Cleaners ten, twelve and nineteen to the adjacent drama chamber
for cleanup."
"We are nineteen," Agape's voice came faintly to him. "I will direct you; you must operate the
extremities."
So they were now a true cyborg: a living brain and a mechanical body! Bane discovered that when he
tried to walk, his legs were wheels. He started a little jerkily, but soon got the hang of it, and propelled
them after the other contraptions toward the door.
Outside the serfs were waiting. Obviously they expected Bane and Agape to walk out, thinking that they
were safe.
He took them around and into the drama suite the two of them had vacated. "Brush the floor," Agape
said.
Bane tried to reach with an arm and extruded an appendage whose terminus was a roller brush. He
lowered this to the floor and twitched his fingers. The brush spun. He started brushing the floor.
DO NOT REACT, a panel flashed.
Then a serf wearing the emblem of Citizen Blue entered. "Good thing I got here in time!" he exclaimed.
"They had us blocked off. Come on; we're going home."
Bane continued brushing.
"Hey, you're safe now!" the man said. "At least, you will be when we get you to the Citizen's territory.
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Come on!"
Bane ignored him, playing the dumb machine.
Disgruntled, the serf departed.
They continued brushing the floor. In due course the job was done. The two other machines had cleaned
off the chairs and dusted the walls. "Return to storage," the speaker said. They returned to the storage
chamber. There they parked and waited for another hour. What was going on? Obviously the self-willed
machines were protecting them, but could the chase still be on? Where was Citizen Blue?
The panel flashed. REACT.
Then Citizen Blue walked in, followed by Sheen, his wife. "Is this chamber secure?" Blue asked. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]