Part 15 (1/2)

”Well, they are, sort of They aren't alive--at least, I don't think they are--but they do what you tell them, and they learn tricks, and they have personalities”

That was true He didn't think robots were alive, either, though biophysics professors tended to beco life Robots could learn, if you used the terh And any robot with more than five hundred hours service picked up a definite and often exasperating personality

”I've been working with the thetails,” she added

The half-dozen natural leaders ahter, the two _Harriet Barne_ officers, and a couple of others--bent over the photoprinted plans Conn had, located their position, and told him as much as they could about what lay ahead

Sylvie Jacquemont could handle robots; she would ride in the front seat of the jeep while he piloted Vibart, the chief engineer, and Yves Jacquemont would ride behind Nichols would ride in the scoith the fighting men One lorry of his own party would follow the jeep; the other would bring up the rear

He snapped on the screen and punched the shi+p combination Stefan Jorisson appeared in it

”Hi, Conn! You all right?” He raised his voice ”Conn's on-screen!”

His father appeared at Jorisson's shoulder and, a ht,” he said ”We just picked up an aret the crowd in the pickup, explaining who they were ”Did you hear from Anse?”

”Yes, he just screened in,” Rodney Maxwell said ”He said a gunboat can get in”

”That's right; clear into the crater”

”Well, we're going to put three of them inside,” Zareff told him

”_Werewolf_, _Zombi_, and _Dero_ And a troop carrier with fifty ular special-weapons section What can you do where you are?”

”Here? Nothing We're going to work around to the other side of the crater, and then find a vertical shaft and go up topside and make as much disturbance as we can”

”That's it!” Zareff approved ”Pull theht to the top Look for us in about an hour; it's going to take ti spotted from above”

He lifted the jeep and started off; the lorry, and the scows and the other lorry, followed; the snooper and the bos They went through great cha with dusty otten into this section; the _Harriet Barne_ was a ht Conn turned left, when the noise of firing from outside became plainer A foundry A machine-shop which seemed to have been abandoned in the middle of some rush job that hadn't really been necessary They came to a place even the snooper couldn't enter, choked to the ceiling with dead vegetation, hydroponic seed-plants that had been left untended to groild and die They eh and open onto the crater, and looked across the floor that had been leveled and vitrified to the other side, three and a half miles away

He didn't knohether to be inal eruption that had for these docks and shi+p-berths, big enough for the hugest hyperspaceshi+p, into it

At first, he had been afraid of getting into position too soon before the task force froan to worry about the tiet halfway around the crater He could hear artillery thundering continuously above Except at the very beginning of the battle, there had been little gunfire He wondered if both sides were running out of lift-and-drive otten too close for anybody to risk using nuclear weapons

He was also worrying about the wo the released prisoners

”Why did the pirates bother with them?” he asked Sylvie

”They used the wo chores for thees; if the men didn't work, Perales threatened to punish the woood aon the shi+p”

”Well, what'll I do with the starts? I can't take them into battle”

”You'll have to; it'll be the safest place for the them recaptured”