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their souls to become goodlife, in effect worshiping the essence of evil.
Lily broke in, obviously hoping to extract some practical information.
"Have you been to the east side, general?"
Everyone knew that
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Templars tended to be religious.
"Not for some time.
Duties keep me busy over here. And begging your pardon, ma'am
not knowing exactly how deep your own commitment to the thing may be but this
Malakó
business is not for me.
The great Eyeball, or whatever& no. My own religion is very simple I
worship Life!"
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"And speaking of life "
He warned his new agents to watch out for their own.
"How're we supposed to report back to you?"
"There's only one quick way, unfortunately not the most convenient, or the
most foolproof. I'll show you. Step this way, if you will."
In a moment he had conducted his two visitors into a small
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Fred Saberhagen - Berserker's Star.html adjoining room. There they found a
crippled man in Templar uniform seated at a plain, small table. Thin cables
emerged from holes in the table's top, then connected to a small, odd
instrument of brassy metal, mounted in its center. From time to time,
something in the little machine would vibrate fiercely, while the man watched
steadily.
More elaborate
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Fred Saberhagen - Berserker's Star.html equipment, connected to the brass,
produced a kind of printout. The lines on the continuously emerging graph
zigged and zagged in time with the chattering of the simple machine.
"Our central telegraph terminal." Pike's voice held a note of pride.
"Anything new, Kurchatov?"
"No sir." The scarred
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Templar looked up and smiled vaguely at his visitors, but in the next moment
was concentrating again on the machinery.
Pike was explaining.
"Our sole means of communication with the other cities on this world. All that
comes in, you see, are simple dots and dashes, through a fiberoptic line. It's
the only way we know of to
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Fred Saberhagen - Berserker's Star.html get a message quickly through the
breakdown zone."
Harry felt somewhere between dazed and lost.
"This is the best anyone on Maracanda can do in the way of communication?"
"Between here and the far east, Minersville and
Tomb Town, I'm afraid it is. Radio's been shown to be hopeless, away from the
free zones.
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Biggest free zone is right here, of course, encompassing the spaceport and
Port City.
"People keep trying to find a better way, of course. We need more resources
for research.
But our Superior General probably sees no reason to have much of a
Templar presence on
Maracanda except to keep the Space Force from having a monopoly.
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There's nothing much here that needs to be defended against berserkers, and no
berserkers to attack."
Lily asked about the fastest way to reach the vicinity of the Tomb.
Pike told his visitors:
"There's basically only one mode of travel on this world. That's overland, by
caravan, or pedicar, or on foot, if it
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Fred Saberhagen - Berserker's Star.html comes to that."
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