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do what was needed.
Maybe it was a long shot. Maybe Titus Charlot would have read the whole thing
differently and put his own trust in another solution. But as a pilot, I
looked at things from the pilot's angle, and despite the fact that I didn't
have a great deal of respect for Eve's training or her abilities, I credited
her with a pilot's feeling and a pilot's potential. I thought she could come
through, if things were right for her. I hoped she would come through, for her
own sake, and for all our sakes. If this play failed we probably wouldn't get
a chance to try any of the alternatives.
I placed Eve in the cradle myself. I hooked up her contacts with the utmost
care, and I placed the hood. I made sure every electrode was clean, and I
tried to minimise the discomfort which would inevitably arise because her head
wasn't the same size and shape as mine.
After that, I reprogrammed the computer to carry us through the course by
which we'd arrived at our present position. By the time I was through Nick was
well advanced with his resurrection of the nerve-net. I put Sam and Mina down
below in order to do a complete systems check of all in-ship power systems. As
Nick gave us back the sensory hook-ups one by one I tested them.
Throughout the whole procedure, Eve never moved a muscle. But we were only
making the ship twitch-we hadn't got anywhere near bringing her back to life.
Ultimately, we were set to go-or to try. I stationed Nick to look after Eve
and Mina to look after Nick. I kept Sam down below, in case I needed moral
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support, inspiration, or advice.
Before I went below, Nick looked at me with an air of accusation.
"You better be right," he said.
"You better hope I am," I told him, putting the screws on a bit because I
didn't like his tone of voice. "Let's all add amen to that. Because I'm going
down to start the countdown, and if she isn't awake and active when the
countdown closes we may not know a lot about it. If I let the cannons go
without a brain up top and a pair of hands to help me juggle the power, we
could vanish in a puff of blue smoke. You won't get the chance to say I told
you so, unless we happen to meet up in the hereafter."
Nick looked at Eve, absolutely motionless in the cradle, limp as a rag doll,
and I could tell that he was doing most of his suffering on her behalf.
"Save it," I advised.
"You really think it will work, don't you?" he said.
"What am I, a lunatic?" I said scathingly.
"How do I know?" he retorted.
"If it works," I told him, "then I wasn't."
"How could it fail?" he said. I got the distinct impression that he lacked
faith. I couldn't help that. Just as long as he did what he was told he was
welcome to do without. I left him to his mental torture, without much
sympathy.
I was not really cut out to be an engineer. It was all foreign to my nature
and foreign to my touch. I strapped myself in and rediscovered the fact that
there's all the difference in the world between a pilot's cradle and an
engineer's harness. For one thing, an engine is big. The parts of the
drive-unit towered above me and crowded around me, and I felt very small
hanging in my little alcove. An engineer can't sit down-he needs his freedom
of movement. He can do his job with one hand tied behind his back, but he
still needs the reach. The instruments are strung out-there's no hood to give
direct sensory access to the information. You can't read every dial
simultaneously-you have to play partly by ear, partly by feel, and partly by
inspired guesswork.
I wasn't happy, but I was comfortable. I knew what I was doing, and I knew
that I knew. But I was still scared, still apprehensive. I was very glad that
no one was going to get the chance to tell me they told me so, if it didn't
work, because I was just in the mood to be sensitive about that kind of thing.
I even had one angle that Sam didn't have, and that was the knowledge of what
it felt like from on top. That would be a help, I was sure. The worm always
stands to profit from the bird's-eye view. I told myself that, and tried to [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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