[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
."Then he turned to the commander."Ma'am, can we get your workshop to make up some duplicates of these? In outward appearance, I mean."So, on the commander's authority, the four little shuttles were brought out of the cavernous Trophy Room and taken to the base shipyard, or dock, under the landing field, where they were to be partially rebuilt and retrofitted.A message was brought to Commander Normandy in the Trophy Room.After reading it in private, she announced that she had just received fresh confirmation of Shiva's plans."It's going to be at the base at Summerland?""That's right."Page 66ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlHarry squinted at her."And just at the predicted time? I suppose it's useless to ask where this tip comes from?""Yes, Mr.Silver.Quite useless.""How long's it going to stay there?""Just long enough for the usual maintenance, I assume."Berserkers, like Solarian ships, had to power up from time to time, in one way or another.This often involved bringing aboard tanks, or frozen blocks, of hydrogen to fuel the power lamps-of course no ship or machine could carry onboard sufficient energy to propel its mass across many light-years at transluminal velocities; riding theGalactic currents through subspace was the only way to accomplish that.But just tuning in to those currents tended to burn a lot of power.Marut, growing more and more enthusiastic, was willing to open up a bit about the tactics that the task force had originally planned to use."We were to pop into normal space, about a hundred thousand klicks from Summerland, within five seconds after Shiva showed up for its scheduled docking-you say you know the place, Silver?Somehow, we have no really decent hologram.""I can sort of visualize it.And could you really have managed that? Timed your emergence that accurately?""We had a good task force put together.We had everything we needed.Of course we expected our plan to work.Otherwise, we would've come up with something different."The three soon left the Trophy Room, adjourning their discussions to the commander's office.There she was able to call up the most recent recon holos of Summerland, which showed the recently established berserker base, resembling an evil castle in some fairy story, squatting in what had once been a verdant valley-where now a lifeless river ran, still steaming, between bare, rocky hillsides, down to a lifeless sea.Doubtless the enemy still had units perpetually prowling, sifting, straining, making sure that on Summerland not a single molecule remained to twitch with signs of life."We were lucky to get these.We haven't had a whole lot of success with robot recon craft, and until this Shiva thing came up, it was very doubtful that sending a live crew to do the job would be worth the risk.The defenses appear to be rather ferocious.""And now-""We're not running any more recon missions.For one thing, I don't want to take the chance of alerting the target base that something is up; and for another, we simply don't have the time.We have to decide everything on what we know right now."There was no telling what else the berserkers might have built since the last holos were taken.There was no reason to doubt that the ground defenses of the new enemy base would be powerful.And it had to be assumed that Shiva would be traveling with a formidable escort.Harry said flatly: "I'd put our chance of success with such a stunt under ten percent.""We'll have a much better grasp on that when we've run a formal computer simulation.Several of them.""Sure," said Harry.But he was shaking his head.If you ran enough simulations, and kept tinkering with them, you were bound to be able to get one at last that showed you the result you wanted."You don't seem to understand, Mr.Silver.""What is it I don't understand?""Even if, which I don't believe for a moment, a good, honest simulation were Page 67ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlto grant us less than a ten-percent chance of bagging Shiva with the force we can now putup-we still can't let the opportunity pass without giving it a try.If we fail to kill this monster now, how in hell is humanity ever going to stop it?"Harry had no answer for that one."You said you came here from Omicron Sector, Silver.""That's what I did.""And your own ship was damaged there.You must have had a fairly good look at what was happening.""I saw some of it." Harry still didn't feel like talking about his skirmish in getting out of Omicron."Though Idon't know what that has to do with anything.I stick by what I said before, this scheme you're coming up with now, putting people in pieces of junk, having them pretend to be berserkers-it just isn't going to work.And you just don't have the horses to go in there fighting."Marut drew breath as if for some forceful reply, then apparently decided to let it wait until some other moment.Harry said: "I suppose they ran some simulations for your mission before you started out from Port Diamond.""Of course we did.Exhaustively.""Sure.And I suppose the chances then were estimated at better than ten percent.As the mission was originally planned, with six fighting ships in a task force-""Don't be idiotic, man!" Marut glowered at him."Our estimation of success was much closer to ninety percent than ten.""All right, even if it was ninety percent then, now it'd be like trying to stop a tank by throwing eggs at it."It was clear at this point that the revised plan for an attack on Shiva had Commander Normandy's approval, orat least her acquiescence.Now people from the station crew and people from the task force were already hard at work, along with such appropriate robotic assistance asClaire could summon up.If Marut's wild scheme was going to have any chance of success, not a minute could be wasted.The usual cautions and procedures, required by strict regulations, for dealing with all captured berserker assets had gone by the board-the last trace of murderous programming poison had to be got out of this hardware so it could be used for something else [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl matkasanepid.xlx.pl
."Then he turned to the commander."Ma'am, can we get your workshop to make up some duplicates of these? In outward appearance, I mean."So, on the commander's authority, the four little shuttles were brought out of the cavernous Trophy Room and taken to the base shipyard, or dock, under the landing field, where they were to be partially rebuilt and retrofitted.A message was brought to Commander Normandy in the Trophy Room.After reading it in private, she announced that she had just received fresh confirmation of Shiva's plans."It's going to be at the base at Summerland?""That's right."Page 66ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlHarry squinted at her."And just at the predicted time? I suppose it's useless to ask where this tip comes from?""Yes, Mr.Silver.Quite useless.""How long's it going to stay there?""Just long enough for the usual maintenance, I assume."Berserkers, like Solarian ships, had to power up from time to time, in one way or another.This often involved bringing aboard tanks, or frozen blocks, of hydrogen to fuel the power lamps-of course no ship or machine could carry onboard sufficient energy to propel its mass across many light-years at transluminal velocities; riding theGalactic currents through subspace was the only way to accomplish that.But just tuning in to those currents tended to burn a lot of power.Marut, growing more and more enthusiastic, was willing to open up a bit about the tactics that the task force had originally planned to use."We were to pop into normal space, about a hundred thousand klicks from Summerland, within five seconds after Shiva showed up for its scheduled docking-you say you know the place, Silver?Somehow, we have no really decent hologram.""I can sort of visualize it.And could you really have managed that? Timed your emergence that accurately?""We had a good task force put together.We had everything we needed.Of course we expected our plan to work.Otherwise, we would've come up with something different."The three soon left the Trophy Room, adjourning their discussions to the commander's office.There she was able to call up the most recent recon holos of Summerland, which showed the recently established berserker base, resembling an evil castle in some fairy story, squatting in what had once been a verdant valley-where now a lifeless river ran, still steaming, between bare, rocky hillsides, down to a lifeless sea.Doubtless the enemy still had units perpetually prowling, sifting, straining, making sure that on Summerland not a single molecule remained to twitch with signs of life."We were lucky to get these.We haven't had a whole lot of success with robot recon craft, and until this Shiva thing came up, it was very doubtful that sending a live crew to do the job would be worth the risk.The defenses appear to be rather ferocious.""And now-""We're not running any more recon missions.For one thing, I don't want to take the chance of alerting the target base that something is up; and for another, we simply don't have the time.We have to decide everything on what we know right now."There was no telling what else the berserkers might have built since the last holos were taken.There was no reason to doubt that the ground defenses of the new enemy base would be powerful.And it had to be assumed that Shiva would be traveling with a formidable escort.Harry said flatly: "I'd put our chance of success with such a stunt under ten percent.""We'll have a much better grasp on that when we've run a formal computer simulation.Several of them.""Sure," said Harry.But he was shaking his head.If you ran enough simulations, and kept tinkering with them, you were bound to be able to get one at last that showed you the result you wanted."You don't seem to understand, Mr.Silver.""What is it I don't understand?""Even if, which I don't believe for a moment, a good, honest simulation were Page 67ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlto grant us less than a ten-percent chance of bagging Shiva with the force we can now putup-we still can't let the opportunity pass without giving it a try.If we fail to kill this monster now, how in hell is humanity ever going to stop it?"Harry had no answer for that one."You said you came here from Omicron Sector, Silver.""That's what I did.""And your own ship was damaged there.You must have had a fairly good look at what was happening.""I saw some of it." Harry still didn't feel like talking about his skirmish in getting out of Omicron."Though Idon't know what that has to do with anything.I stick by what I said before, this scheme you're coming up with now, putting people in pieces of junk, having them pretend to be berserkers-it just isn't going to work.And you just don't have the horses to go in there fighting."Marut drew breath as if for some forceful reply, then apparently decided to let it wait until some other moment.Harry said: "I suppose they ran some simulations for your mission before you started out from Port Diamond.""Of course we did.Exhaustively.""Sure.And I suppose the chances then were estimated at better than ten percent.As the mission was originally planned, with six fighting ships in a task force-""Don't be idiotic, man!" Marut glowered at him."Our estimation of success was much closer to ninety percent than ten.""All right, even if it was ninety percent then, now it'd be like trying to stop a tank by throwing eggs at it."It was clear at this point that the revised plan for an attack on Shiva had Commander Normandy's approval, orat least her acquiescence.Now people from the station crew and people from the task force were already hard at work, along with such appropriate robotic assistance asClaire could summon up.If Marut's wild scheme was going to have any chance of success, not a minute could be wasted.The usual cautions and procedures, required by strict regulations, for dealing with all captured berserker assets had gone by the board-the last trace of murderous programming poison had to be got out of this hardware so it could be used for something else [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]