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"Just that, Gann. Guards reported someone there. A squad was sent down, and
they saw him. He was at the manual consoles changing the settings, erasing
miles of tape, reversing connections. The
Machine is mad now, Gann. And the Plan is going mad with it. All over the
world."
"Never mind that! What did he look like, this Star-child?"
Machine General Wheeler squared his shoulders and backed crisply, "A man.
Golden, they say. Almost as if he were luminous. Photographs were taken, but
he was not recognized. It ... didn't resemble you, Gann. But I thought "
"You thought you'd come here anyway. Use me as a scapegoat, maybe. Is that it?
The way you did when you pretended I shot Delta Four?"
The general tried to protest; then his lips smacked shut like the closing of a
trap. He nodded his head twice, briskly, like a metronome. "Yes!"
Gann was taken aback. He had not expected so quick a confession. All he could
do was say, "But why? Why did you shoot her? To get her out of the way as a
witness?"
"Of course," rapped Machine General Wheeler.
"And pretend I was the' Starchild? To make yourself more important to the
Planner and the
Machine?"
"Precisely," the general crackled out.
Gann studied him thoughtfully, then said, "Something must have changed your
mind. What was it?"
The general answered without changing expression or tone. Only a faint color
on the brow, a pale brightness as of perspiration, showed the strain he must
have felt. "The girl recovered," he snapped. "She told the Planner the
truth that I had merely found that document, and planted it on you. The
Planner reported to the Machine and "
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"And what?" demanded Boysie Gann.
The general's voice cracked. "And the Machine went mad. It ordered my arrest.
Then it began ordering the arrest of Sister Delta Four, the Vice-Planner lor
Central America, the guards in the
Hall of the Planner, even the Planner himself. There was confusion. I shot my
way clear. I secured an aircraft, the one Sister Delta Four had come to the
Planner's headquarters in, and I escaped.
But I must leave Earth, Gann! I want you to take me to the Reefs, because .. .
because I must get away."
"Get away? Why?"
The general's voice tolled out the answer. "In shooting* my way out of the
Planner's headquarters, 1 killed two men. One of them was the Planner."
Boysie Gann had never known where the training school was located on Earth. As
they emerged to the surface he saw for the first time the great sweep of
mountains to the north, felt the icy sting of
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that they were on the plateaus below the Himalayas. For thousands of years
only nomads and warriors had shared this bleak, desolate land. Now a great
hydroelectric plant boomed beyond the level sweep of a rocket-port hewn out of
rock.
There was something about the power plant that looked strange. As Machine
General Wheeler led him quickly to a waiting jetcraft Gann realized what was
wrong with the hydroelectric plant. Even at this distance he could see that it
was a wreck. Its great windows reflected no light; they were shattered. There
were cracks in its solid masonry walls. There had been an explosion within
some mighty burst of short-circuiting energy, volatilizing all matter within
its scope, "Never mind that," rapped out the general "Come aboard! There's
someone there you'll want to see."
Gann followed, staring about. If destruction had come even here, it must be
radically more far-
reaching than he had dreamed.
Was it the Starchild?
And who was the Starchild? Hurrying after General Wheeler, Gann's mind was a
vortex of thoughts, memories, impressions. The body-shaking rupture of his
communion with the Machine. The terrible fight in the Planner's hall, and the
terrible shock that had struck him when he saw Sister Delta
Four the girl who had once
254
been Julie Martinet, his love shot down before him. The long, dizzying fall
through nonspace, from the Reefs to Earth. The strange hermit, Harry Hickson
...
It was almost more than he couJd take in. Bemused, he was hardly aware when
they reached the waiting jet-ship. He followed General Wheeler into the open
hatch, and then he saw who it was who awaited them there.
"Julie!" he cried. "Julie Martinetl"
But it was Sister Delta Four who answered. "Come in. Close the hatch. We must
take off at oncel I
have a message from the Machine."
General Wheeler reacted at once. He turned and closed the hatch, then leaped
across the narrow cabin of the jet-ship and snatched from the grasp of Sister
Delta Four the black cube that was her linkbox. "Fool!" he rasped. "A message
from the Machine! Don't you know the Machine's gone mad?
The Starchild has been tampering with it. It is no longer functioning
according to Plan. The evidence of your eyes should tell you that. Can't you
see what's been going on?"
The girl lifted her head, unafraid, and stared at him with objective, remote
eyes. The black fabric of her hood fell away, baring the bright medallion of
the communion plate in her forehead, just like Boysie Gann's own. She said in
her melodic, chiming voice, "I serve the Machine, General
Wheeler. And you are a traitor, condemned to death."
"So are you, for that matter," growled the general. He tossed the linkbox to
Boysie Gann. "Here.
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