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发信人: by (春天的小懒虫), 信区: SFworld
标  题: 2010 (20)
发信站: 哈工大紫丁香 (Wed Oct  6 14:42:15 1999), 转信

                         20
                    Guillotine

`What  is  it?'  asked  Curnow  with  mild distaste, hefting the
little mechanism in his hand. `A guillotine for mice?'
  `Not  a  bad  description  -  but I'm after bigger game.' Floyd
pointed  to  a  flashing  arrow on the display screen, which was
now showing a complicated circuit diagram.
  `You see this line?'
  `Yes - the main power supply. So?'
  `This  is  the  point where it enters Hal's central processing
unit. I'd like you to install this gadget here. Inside the cable
trunking,  where it can't be found without a deliberate search.'
  `I  see.  A  remote  control,  so you can pull the plug on Hal
whenever you want to. Very neat - and a non-conducting'
blade, too, so there won't be any embarrassing shorts when
it's triggered. Who makes toys like this? The CIA?'
  `Never mind. The control's in my room - that little red
calculator I always keep on my desk. Put in nine nines, take
the square root, and press INT. That's all. I'm not sure of its
range - we'll have to test that - but as long as Leonov and
Discovery are within a couple of kilometres of each other,
there'll be no danger of Hal running amok again.'
  `Who are you going to tell about this... thing?'
  `Well, the only person I'm really hiding it from is
Chandra.'
  `I guessed as much.'
  `But the fewer who know, the less likely it is to be talked
about. I'll tell Tanya that it exists, and if there's an emer-
gency you can show her how to operate it.'
  `What kind of emergency?'
  `That's not a very bright question, Walter. If I knew, I
wouldn't need the damn thing.'
  `Guess you're right. When do you want me to install your
patented Hal-zapper?'
  `As soon as you can. Preferably tonight. When Chandra's
sleeping.'
  `Are you kidding? I don't think he ever sleeps. He's like a
mother nursing a sick baby.'
  `Well, he's got to come back to Leonov to eat, occasion-
ally.'
  `I've news for you. The last time he went across, he tied a
little sack of rice to his suit. That will keep him going for
weeks. '
  `Then we'll have to use one of Katerina's famous knock-
out drops. They did a pretty good job on you, didn't
they?'
  Curnow was joking about Chandra - at least, Floyd
assumed that he was, though one could never be quite sure:
he was fond of making outrageous statements with a per-
fectly straight face. It had been some time before the
Russians had fully realized that; soon, in self-defence, they
were prone to pre-emptive laughs even when Curnow was
being perfectly serious.
  Curnow's own laugh, mercifully, had much abated since
Floyd had first heard it in the upward-bound shuttle; on that
occasion, it had obviously been primed by alcohol. He had
fully expected to cringe from it again at the end-of-orbit
party, when Leonov had finally made rendezvous with Dis-
covery. But even on that occasion, though Curnow had
drunk a good deal, he had remained as much under control
as Captain Orlova herself
  The one thing he did take seriously was his work. On the
way up from Earth, he had been a passenger. Now he was
crew.

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:-) Helix@163.NET                                                    85958F57
:-( Helix@KALI.COM.CN                                                208CE12C
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