Podstrony
|
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
try. So the robot's behavior is consistent with rationality, which is quite
comforting in the circumstances."
The chanting grew louder and Jak saw that the black horizon had now crawled up
to halfway across the window.
"One thing does worry me a bit," the Rubahy went on.
To Jak's amusement, he found himself laughing. "Well, I'm glad that you're
able to be worried."
The Rubahy made that weird gargling sound, and Jak realized that they were
sharing a joke like two toves. Being a few seconds from a wreck certainly did
strange things to your mind.
The whistling scream of air past the torn metal protruding from the launch
almost drowned out the loud recitation of the Short Litany of Terror, so it
was hard to hear. The Rubahy leaned over and said, loudly, in Jak's ear, "I
don't know if the robot can actually do the job. It has a very long reaction
time probably they stinted it on memory and it takes far too long to think of
what to do next. So if we are lucky, and it's smart enough, it's calculating
the singing-on moment to spin us and turn on the hot jets, to try for an on-
the-tail landing. It may just not be smart enough or fast enough, and of
course if we're out of fuel for the hot jets, we're on entropy's bad side."
"What do you think our chances are?" Jak shouted.
"If the robot can do it, and there's enough fuel in the tanks, fifty percent.
Otherwise, one percent."
Jak was beginning to wish that he could bring himself to chant with the
others, or at least to believe that if he did it would help, but that didn't
seem to be part of his makeup, so he just watched the window as the dark Earth
ate more and more of the night sky. They seemed to be leveling off, a little;
perhaps they were moving fast enough so that the keel got more lift, or
perhaps Jak's hopes were fooling him. At any rate, it now felt more like an
uncomfortable full gravity and less like high acceleration, and that was a
slight improvement.
The sky dwindled to a small upper part of the window. Now Jak could see
individual hills and clumps of
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/B...20-%20The%20Duke%20of%20Uranium%
20v0.9.html (104 of 154) [10/15/2004 12:44:05 PM]
John Barnes - The Duke of Uranium trees that dotted the grassland. They
streaked over a herd of animals who were wandering across the plain, on their
way to some purpose that made sense to them, and despite the feeling that he
would be dead in a moment or because of it Jak was glad, just once, to have
seen so many animals all out wandering free.
At just the point where Jak had decided that either the robot was too slow, or
there was no fuel for the hot jets, or both, the cold jets spewed a stream of
white vapor across the view, the launch whirled 180
degrees, and the hot jets cut in at full power. An instant later, the pile of
corpses by the forward bulkhead flew back down the cabin, caroming over the
seats to smash against the aft bulkhead. Jak had just time to bend forward and
hug his knees when he saw a corporate type, coverall still impeccable and
briefcase still clutched in his dead hand, but with his slightly dented head
hanging at an unworkable angle, fly from the forward bulkhead. One dragging
shoe ticked the seat in front of Jak and scraped his bent back, stinging.
Sounding exactly as bored, in exactly the same way as it had before, the robot
pilot said, "You see what happens when you don't wear your seat belt?"
The hot jets roared against their direction of flight, pushing back against
Page 88
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Mother Earth as she tried to crush them to her breast, and the thunder seemed
to go on forever, though it could not have been as much as a minute. The
Rubahy shouted to Jak, "This is all very well done by the robot! His designers
should be proud! If it is possible for us to survive, the robot will see that
we do! If not, thank you for the honor of your company!"
"And thank you for the honor of yours!" Jak shouted. In all the
intrigue-and-adventure stories that he had been gobbling down ever since he
could remember, they had always said that only when you faced death did you
find out what sort of person you really were.
Apparently, what I really am is really polite.
Even to a terrier. Though he is about the only person around here not behaving
like a gweetz
.
The chanting continued, unable to match the full-on blasting of the hot jets
for volume, but making up for it with pure intense passion.
With a loud thump and one last hard shove at their backs, the hot jets cut
out. Jak had just an instant to hear the wild unison shout of " an excellent
way to pass the time " before the loud smash and grind of impact; acceleration
must have been high enough for him to black out because he recalled nothing
more of the crash after that.
Jak returned to consciousness as if he were swimming up from deep, cold water
that became warmer as he rose; then as if imperceptibly the warm water became
a fog through which he flew; then finally as if a veil fell away from the
world. When his eyes opened, he saw a white-haired man who might be a hundred
or so, and a plain-faced, muscular young woman, perhaps five years older than
himself, bending over him. "He's back with us," the young woman said.
"Probably just blacked out from the acceleration; from the way the cabin
whipped around, I bet he took the worst of it."
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/B...20-%20The%20Duke%20of%20Uranium%
20v0.9.html (105 of 154) [10/15/2004 12:44:05 PM]
John Barnes - The Duke of Uranium
"From the way my head feels, I bet you're right," Jak said. It felt as if he
were talking over a long radio connection to someone a few seconds' lag away.
He sat up very slowly and looked around.
About a half kilometer to his right, the launch lay burning, lighting up the
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pldoc.pisz.plpdf.pisz.plkskarol.keep.pl
|
