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des-perate act, but it had worked, giving him enough con-trol over Max for them to make it off the
station. He knew now, though, that it had been such a struggle, his body failing as it hadbecause he'd
worked to dominate the machine.
"Not again," he said, working his legs into Max's, his feet finding the stirrups set just above the suit's
knees. He reached back and closed the hatch, the inte-rior's temp jumping several degrees, from hot to
suffo-
eating. Once Max was awake, the cooling system would kick on ...
Ellis pressed his arms to his sides, finding the touch-sensitive controls with his fingers, breathing deeply.
Old sweat, chemicals, burnt wiring smells that instantly took him back, the disjointed memories rising
close to the surface. There was another scent, uglier, and he remembered that he'd vomited near the
end
blood, you threw up blood
but he knew his olfactory senses would pretty much shut down once Max took over. All that was left
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was to lean back. The interface probe would complete the process when it touched him.
Ellis closed his eyes, preparing himself for the ini-tial pain as best he could; he took a deep breath and
pushed his head back, a slight smile on his face as he felt the metal tip of the longer spike, as he heard the
probe hum into action
and the pain was so sudden, so complete that for a half second, he was Brian Ellis again, a person, his
thoughts all his own and he knew that he'd made a horrible mistake, and that it was too late as his limbs
started to convulse, as the prongs worked their way into him, boring the old holes wider, his blood
spurting into the hot black of the robotic suit.
Nirasawa had been damaged, parts of his program inac-cessible, parts of his body in need of repair, but
he put these matters aside; Mr. Briggs had been taken away. Mr. Briggs could very well be in danger,
and Nirasawa would deal with his own problems once he'd found and secured the safety of Mr. Briggs.
It had been nearly twenty-four minutes since he'd last seen Mr. Briggs, on the second northwest deck of
the Bunda survey station. The being that Nirasawa had been working to restrain had not been killed
when the station had fallen, and Nirasawa had been detained from his primary function by the being once
on the ground. The being, alien/organic in nature, had been
injured, making it easier for Nirasawa to render it harmless; he'd broken all four limbs and thrown its
weapon away. The being had died within seven min-utes, although Nirasawa could not be any more
specific as to the exact time; he'd already begun a perimeter search for Mr. Briggs, and had passed the
dead alien be-ing seven minutes after he'd initially left it. The being could have ceased living at any period
during those minutes.
Mr. Briggs had chosen not to be implanted with a signal 07901 patch, compatible to all Cyberdyne
07901 Guard series. Mr. Briggs's position would be known to Nirasawa at all times if Mr. Briggs had
been implanted. It was a simple procedure, a painless injection that ful-filled all terms of Nirasawa's
warranty and would en-sure a higher level of satisfaction on the part of Mr. Briggs; Nirasawa found it
unfortunate that Mr. Briggs had declined the patch. Since he had no signal input, Nirasawa would have to
search as programmed, an ex-panding perimeter search with possible directional changes based on
suggestive evidence found.
Nirasawa's search had been unsuccessful. The sta-tion's malfunction and subsequent crash had created
the problem of too much suggestive evidence, so Nirasawa had found it necessary to reduce his
depen-dence on his heuristic logic driver, relying primarily on his intuitive functions. This, unfortunately,
was one of the areas that had suffered damage, between 300 and 330 of the self-mapping connective
loops no longer functioning. Nirasawa could not narrow the number down any further. He continued his
expansion, tempo-rarily reducing power to damaged areas as he walked, searching for Mr. Briggs. He
did not call for him, the existence of hostile beings making vocal contact a risk in the possible instance
that Mr. Briggs was being held.
Nirasawa found Mr. Briggs fifty-two meters from the outer edge of the defunct station, thirty-three
min-utes since last contact, Mr. Briggs restrained by an or-ganic substance that bound him to the trunk of
a large
tree. Nirasawa sensed that there were several hidden beings in the vicinity but there were no threatening
movements, so he did not increase their priority status. There was an alien ovoid in front of Mr. Briggs,
and an alien body attached to Mr. Briggs's face.
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Nirasawa acted quickly to fulfill his primary func-tion. He began to pull the foreign body from Mr.
Briggs's face and immediately, Mr. Briggs began to choke, the being's multiple legs tightening in a
possibly damaging way around Mr. Briggs's head. Nirasawa ceased his efforts. There was a possibility
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