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aborted scene of last night in the control room had left him feeling more
frustrated than usual. All right; first some new scores, and then he'd get
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around to the old ones.
5
It was high morning when he got back to the control room, but still it was
earlier than he'd expected it to be. There hadn't been many women in the
cages, but either they got less and less attractive as he went along, or the
recent excitement and stress had taken more out of him physically than he'd
realized. Otherwise he was sure he could have completed such a programme
handily, maybe even twice around. Oh well, there was plenty of time. Now he
needed help.
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Skysign
The first thing to do was to disconnect the clock in some way. That proved to
be easy: a red bar under it simply stopped it. Since nobody, obviously, had
visited the control room since his last tampering, he now had the whole ship
in permanent coma.
Next, he counted down to Jeanette's button and pushed it. That ought to awaken
her. The only remaining problem was to work out how that three-hole lock on
her cage worked.
That didn't turn out to be easy at all. It took an hour of fumbling before it
suddenly sank inward under his hand and the door slid back.
Jeanette was dressed, and stared at him with astonishment.
"How did you do that?" she said. "What's wrong with the phone? Where's the
food? Have you been doing sornething stupid?"
He was just about to lash back at her when he realized that this was no time
to start the breaking-off routine, and instead put on his best
master-of-the-situation smile, as if he were just starting up with her.
"Not exactly," he said. "But I've got control of the ship. Mind if I come in?"
"Control of the ship? But-well, all right, come in. You're in anyhow."
He came forward and sat down at her version of his desk. She backed away from
him, only a little, but quite definitely. "Explain yourself," she said.
He didn't; but he told her the rudiments of the story, in as earnest and
forthright manner as he had ever managed to muster in his life. As he had
expected, she asked sharp technical questions, most of which he parried, and
her superior manner dissolved gradually into one of intense interest.
All the same, whenever he made the slightest movement to stand up, she stepped
slightly away from him, a puzzled expression flitting across her face and then
vanishing again 172
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Skysign as he fed her new details. He was puzzled in turn. Though the enforced
ship's-sleep hadn't prevented her from being highly responsive-in fact, it was
his guess that it had helped -he was sure that she had never awakened even for
a second during the morning and hence had nothing to blame him for.
Yet it was obvious that she knew, somewhere in the back of her mind, that
something happened to her, and associated it with him. Well, maybe that would
be helpful too, in the long run; a cut cake goes stale in a hurry.
When he was through, she said reluctantly: "That was close observation, and
quick thinking."
"Not very quick. It took me all morning to work it out."
Again the flitting, puzzled expression. "You got the right answer in time.
That's as quick as anybody needs to be. Did you wake anybody else?"
"No, just you. I don't know anybody else here, and I figured you could help
me. Besides, I didn't want a mob of released prisoners running around the ship
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kicking the crew and fooling with things."
"Hmm. Also sensible. I must say, you surprise me." Carl couldn't resist a grin
at this, but took care to make it look bashful. "Well-what do you suggest we
do now?"
"We ought to figure out the main control board. See if it's possible for us to
run the ship without anybody from the crew to help--and how many hands from
the cages we'd need to do the job."
"Yes," she said thoughtfully. "At a guess, the main control board is as
rational as the sleep-board is. And the two captains-Brand and Lavelle-must be
able to ran the ship from there all by themselves in a pinch; otherwise the
threat of knocking all the rest of the crew out wouldn't have suffi-
cient force. Interesting social system these people must have. I don't think I
like them."
"Me neither," Carl said with enthusiasm. "I hate people who whip serfs."
Jeanette's eyebrows rose. "The crew can't be serfs. They 173
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Skysign wear the metal suits-a powerful tool in any hands-and can take.thern
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