She smiled in spite of herself. ?Probably just the opposite. All right.?She slid the black box out where he could see it clearly. ?I need to know what happened here in the EEV, why we were ejected from our ship while still in deep sleep. If you really want to be helpful, find me a computer with audio and sensory interpretation capabilities so I can access this flight recorder.?

Clemens looked doubtful. ?We don’t have anything like that here. The Company salvaged all the sophisticated

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cybernetics. Everything they left us is either basic program and response or strictly ROM.?He smiled sardonically. ?I imagine they didn’t want a bunch of dumb prisoners messing with their expensive machinery.??What about Bishop???Bishop??He frowned. ?The droid that crashed with me.??He was checked and discarded as useless.??Let me be the judge of that.?A note of concern entered her voice. ?His components haven’t been cannibalized or compacted, have they??

?I told you: nobody here’s smart enough to do the first, and there wasn’t any reason to waste the energy to carry out the latter. What’s left of him’s in fewer pieces than the prisoner who got killed, but not many. Don’t tell me you think you can get some use out of him??

?All right, I won’t tell you. Where is he??Clemens looked resigned. ?I’ll point you in the proper direction, but I’m afraid I can’t join you. I have an appointment. Watch your step, okay??

She was unfazed. ?If I wasn’t in the habit of doing so, I’d be dead now twenty times over.? 85 VI

The candleworks was more than a hobby. While the installation’s sealed, self-contained fusion plant generated more than enough energy to light the entire facility should anyone think it necessary, it provided nothing in the way of portable energy. Rechargeable lights were a scarce and precious commodity. After all, the Company techs whose responsibility it had been to decide what was salvaged and what was left behind had logically assumed that the prisoners wouldn’t want to go wandering about the surface of Fiorina at night. Within the installation the fusion plant would provide all the illumination they wanted. And since fusion plants simply did not fail, there was no need to consider, nor were substantial provisions made for, backup. But there were supplies, secreted by miners or forgotten by the evacuation techs, down in the shafts from which millions of tons of ore had been extracted. Supplies which could make life for prisoners and staff alike a little easier.

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^SN&S*^ 86

Alan Dean Foster

There was plenty of time to hunt them out. All that was wanting was portable illumination.