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.Maybe I was just avoiding a good reason to unplug the roaming little robot.“Marvin,” I said, gaining the attention of several cameras.“I need you to translate for me now.Sandra, put him down and let him reconnect his systems.”With poor manners, Sandra dumped him onto the deck plates.Marvin clattered and rattled, sorting himself out.One of his cameras fell to the floor, the supporting arm having evidently lost power.The nanites struggled to chain-up and lift it again.I frowned at Sandra.She ignored me and stalked back to her station.Major Sarin refused to look at either Sandra or I, perhaps fearing another attack.Gorski stared with his mouth open, wondering if it was a bad idea to say anything.Major Welter still tapped at his flight controls, so absorbed he didn’t even seem to have noticed the drama.Marvin’s fourth camera was moving again.He used it to track Sandra closely.I didn’t blame him.He had never given me an acknowledgement, of course.I hadn’t demanded a response.“Marvin, are you ready to translate? Talk to me.”“No,” he said.“I believe I’ve suffered internal injuries.I’m rearranging some of my neural chains.Shutting down.”“What?” I asked.“Dammit.”He shut down, his cameras all clattering to the floor at once.“Sandra, did you have to do that?” I hissed.“He’s a murderer.Are you afraid of him?”“No,” I said, “I’m worried he won’t cooperate if he knows he’s been abused.”“Oh, he knows about that.Don’t worry.”I sighed.Major Sarin was smirking at her computer.Gorski was shaking his head and Major Welter was still absorbed in his control system.At least one of them was doing their job.I again told myself I’d have to get Sandra off my bridge in the near future.This was getting very unprofessional.I recalled reading stories about long spaceflights, how discipline was predicted to break down over time as people would never get a respite and could not maintain tight order in their lives for such a long, unbroken period.We’d never been all that disciplined in the first place, so I supposed the process was happening faster in our military organization.I’d have to work on that.We needed a big book of regulations.Marvin regained consciousness just as we crossed the border between Alpha Centauri and the Solar System.We came in at a relative crawl.I watched the readouts and the metallic-relief situation table with great interest.There were the three cruisers, still in the same spot.I couldn’t tell if they were firing on something, or waiting, or what.“Hope you’re feeling better, Marvin,” Sandra said as he turned on again and stood himself up.I flashed a glare at her, and she backed off with pursed lips.“Earth may be under attack.Let’s pull it together, people,” I said.Sandra looked at me and took a deep breath.She seemed to know the comment was directed at her.“No external emissions,” I said.“Not even active sensory equipment.I don’t want these Macros to know who we are.As far as they are concerned, we are their fourth cruiser, coming to complete the diamond.Let’s steer toward them, helmsman.”Welter did everything but press his knees on the control panel.With a slight shudder, the ship began to turn and change course, still accelerating.I was impressed.After having taken a crack at that control system, I knew this thing was harder to steer than a broken shopping cart.“Good job, Major,” I said.“You are a big part of this.If we can make our flight path look natural, they are more likely to be convinced.”“We’re being scanned, sir,” Major Sarin said suddenly.“Radar and laser-targeting.”“By whom?” I asked.“The Macro squadron.They are definitely looking us over.”“Any incoming messages yet?”“Not that I can determine.”“Good, we’ll let it ride.If we approach at this pace, how long will we have until we are in range, Gorski?“In range sir?”“To fire upon the Macros.”Gorski swallowed hard.“About ten hours, sir.If they hold still.”Marvin’s cameras drifted from one face to the next.“Should I contact them now?” he asked.“Not yet.We’ll let them call us first.We will only respond, not initiate communications.You are important now, Marvin.You need to imitate a Macro Command responding to another Macro Command that is calling.”All of Marvin’s cameras were on me now, except for one that was keeping an eye on Sandra.“I can’t do that,” he said.“Why not?” I snapped.I suddenly felt like beating on him myself.“I’m only one unit.I do not possess the appropriate protocols or multitasking capacities to simulate an entire Macro crew.”I thought about it and exposed my teeth in a grimace.He had a point, knowing what I did of Macro group-think.They were really a single mass-mind for command purposes.If we were really Macros, we would connect up to the rest of them as would a distributed computer system connected via a network.Back on Earth, I’d studied such projects, which involved the use of thousands of computers linked by the internet that would normally sit quietly at night.These machines were signed up by their owners to share their small amount of cpu power with all the others to form a vast computer system to solve large problems.Researchers working on things like the cure for cancer could avail themselves of this ready computer power when they needed it.I’d suspected for some time the Macros operated on a similar principal.When it came to command decisions, there was no commander.Every Macro in the region offered up part of its brain to the rest and everyone shared in the effort to come to a single decision.At that point, they were effectively one computer.When they communicated, Macro Command was really all of them talking to me at once.The problem facing me now was grim.We were in a Macro ship and knew how to send Macro signals.But we couldn’t pretend to be dozens of Macros machines.I only had Marvin.I supposed he might be able to pretend he was one Macro, but not a crowd of them.I banged my fist on the metal table.That was another thing I liked about metal beads for screens.They didn’t break on you when you expressed your frustration.“Okay,” I said, “we can’t bullshit them all the way.But we’ll still give it a try.Marvin, when they talk to us, tell me what they say.Listen in.We will transmit nothing back.We have a big hole in our snout.Most of the sensory systems were up there.They might just believe our ship’s transmitters are out.If we act appropriately, we can receive their instructions and appear to follow them.”“That can’t work forever,” Gorski said suddenly.“Um, sorry sir, but once we get close, any normal Macro would be able to transmit ship-to-ship directly.”I nodded.“You’re right about that.Marvin, what is the typical range of a Macro unit’s built-in transmitter?”“Under normal electromagnetic conditions, it should be one to one hundred miles.”I huffed [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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