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Andrew reporting.
I have had enough of Daniel's troublemaking. He has never fitted in, has never been
one of the group. From the moment we first stepped out on the Mars surface, he has
been contrary and cranky. He even attacked Enoch and tried to steal his radio. Then,
instead of helping us, he went wandering off piling up rocks and got captured by the
Ipsolstai. Well, they can have him. It was a mistake to help him and give him
a radio of his own.
"Daniel! You are going to be in big trouble as soon as I get loose!"
This is intolerable. I can't move even one centimeter. Here we are trapped in a damaged
space ship, about to be disintegrated by hostile weapons. I know exactly how to prevent
that outcome, but Daniel has impulsively made such action impossible. Just wait until
I get my hands on him.
"Daniel, you miserable bucket of misfunctioning mismatched parts! You wretched sociopathic
warped rusty heap of faulty circuit boards! Get me out of this, you dimbulbed doofus!
Release me instantly, or suffer consequences!"
"Bette!"
Andrew is furious with Daniel. He keeps trying to struggle out of the straps and get
at him. Isaac is watching and seems very scared. Daniel is arguing with the Ipsosltai,
but seems to be having more luck. Things are bad. I'm watching the screen now that
Andrew can't. I don't want to let Andrew go until I know why Daniel is doing this, Daniel
spent a lot of time alone. I remember what he did back then, I suspect Andrew got away
rather easily.
The battle is going badly. The three Amphibian ships are still firing and almost
nothing seems to be working. The Nest-Enveloping-Eggs looks horrible. They seem to be
concentrating on it for some reason. I don't know. It seems like the worse the Nest-
Enveloping-Eggs looks the more our ship shakes from damage. I think the other ship is
protecting us somehow. Look at it!
I'm scared. The ship is shaking a lot now, and the Amphibians aren't stopping! Now
the Ipsolstai is repeating the same thing over and over to Daniel. He keep saying no,
it won't work. What is Daniel saying?
Play possum.
Do not move.
Pretend to be dead.
They will believe.
Then kill them all.
They will believe.
The One knows.
Zachary is going down into the abyss. It won't be easy. The cable of the caterpillar is
not long enough to reach the bottom. So, Elder Brother did some changes concerning
its climbing construction. I hope it works.
I keep waiting up here with Mao, Gen and Sojourner. We function as a reserve at the
moment, if something happens to Zachary. Elder Brother, said that he could build a
second caterpillar over the weekend, if needed. That's good to know, but I don't like to
imagine that Zachary could hang down there for several days.
"Andrew, please stop talking about Daniel in that way. He's a Brace Probe like us. And
he saved your life, when you were captured by the EU-probes. Andrew, never forget
that any quarrel can seed a war."
Maybe that's also the reason of the Amphibian attack. I don't want to be that moralistic,
but it's going to be a rule that our probe society never will give any reason to anyone to
start any war.
"Zachary, how are you doing?"
Hi, Professor K! I didn't know that you were still here. How nice! Do you know Miss
Chang? She is nice, too, but not lately. In fact, I think that she has given us faulty
data, on purpose!
You and Koala and Bombardier were right, JASE. Miss Chang is not truthful. Of all the
millions of people on Earth, she is the only one who ever tried to deceive us. I think
she must be broken, like Daniel and Enoch used to be before we fixed them. It makes me
sad to think about it. Did she really get Hamlet? Why didn't he run away? How awful.
JASE, I will ask her about Hamlet as soon as possible, but right now I have to go and
talk to Commandant Fitzgerald. Theresa and I each have a translator box now. I think
that our transmissions are amplified and converted to an analog chromic system, and
displayed on a screen so that all the Ipsolstai can sense it at the same time. I see
the six little eggs! There they are, right beside Commandant Fitzgerald! They are
inside a small box with a clear lid.
Okay, I'm ready.
"Well, Burn got a scar, but he was our friend and then Amphibians came and Caleb . . .Oh, not yet? Okay."
I'm climbing down the rockface that leads down to the bottom of the dome. The
caterpillar is doing fine, but the critical point will be reached, when we will run
out of cable. The caterpillar stopped. Looks like that we just reached that point.
"Elder Brother, we are still fixed by the cable. What about if I climb up to its top
to see how the caterpillar is doing?"
It's okay with him and it's interesting to watch too, but I've to take care about my
balance. I also keep myself a little apart, because the caterpillar is drilling two deep
holes into the rockface by its laser. I can see the yellow beam clearly, but it's hard
to say if it gets any deeper.
"Elder Brother, are you sure that it's working?"
No answer by now. But the caterpillar kept on. Then suddenly it shut off its laser and
got two long hooks out of a tube on top of its casing. You won't believe it, they fit. The
hooks went into the holes almost to their ends. Next the caterpillar got fixed, unhooked
the top cable and fixed it again.
"Elder Brother, good work. Congratulation. We keep on going down."
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