"E. C. Tubb - Dumarest 22 - The Terra Data" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tubb E. C)

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The Terra Data by E.C. Tubb


Chapter One

In the dark a child was crying.

Listening to it, a normal man would have responded to the thin, keening wail,
feeling the emptiness, the terror and hopeless despair, but to Elge it was merely
the symptom of a disturbing problem. The thing crying had been old long before
he'd been born, and tears, to it, had been alien for the major part of its life. Yet
now it cried as if a child again. Why?

"Catatonia," said the man at his side. Like Elge he wore the scarlet robe of the
Cyclan. His face was gaunt, bone prominent, his skull devoid of hair; attributes
common to all cybers. "The probability is so high as to eliminate doubt. For
some reason the intelligence is trying to find escape in the past."

Moving back through time into childhood—there to find forgotten terrors. An

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answer which was almost certainly correct; Icelus was too skilled to make errors,
but one which left the main problem unsolved. Why should the intelligence have
needed to escape at all?

Leaning back in his chair Elge stared thoughtfully at the console before him; the
meters, readouts, signal lights, the speakers from which came the endless
sobbing. Crude apparatus compared to what alternatives were available but far
safer to use as two cybers had proved; one now dead from cerebral shock, the
other a mindless shell. And yet a probability remained that he could gain some
measure of success.

A touch and a microphone was activated. "Itel," said Elge. "Itel, can you hear