

### Luca Poggi

## Mens

www.quellidized.it

www.0111edizioni.com

www.quellidized.it

Mens

Copyright © 2012 Zerounoundici Edizioni  
ISBN: 978-88-6307-473-4  
Cover: Image Shutterstock.com

# 1.

The sound of the glass that broke him stopped for an instant the jaws of my relatives.

Nobody lifted the head: the small ones struck me a distracted glance, Daylight it approached me the napkin without looking me.

The breakfast slowly strained me on the right forearm and I remained to stare for a longer time at her of the necessary one, while I was grabbing the napkin with the left hand. I intercepted the colaticcio on the elbow with a vague sense of disgust.

«You should talk to doctor Berliz of it» it said Daylight starting over chewing.

Berliz was my psychiatrist. I shaken the head. My daughter was always too much protective in my comparisons, but in reality I knew very well why you/he/she happened. It was the third glass that I grinded that week.

I didn't make him/it volutamente; rather I tried to check me as, I was able. I had become with my body good.

But I didn't succeed in accepting that my breakfast was reduced to an admixture of chemical substances tasteless.

My brain needed it to survive, certain, but inside of me I didn't want to give up giving her a different meaning; I remembered very well when I was a true man and my wife it was still in life: then the breakfast was an occasion to be together with the family.

Every time I hoped to recreate that moments of serene complicity, but every time was a disappointment.

I freed me some fragments of glass and I ended to clean me.

I would have had to use a plastic dispenser, to eat, but I hesitated: it was too much antiseptic.

«Children, the school» it said Daylight.

Teo and Gena finished the milk with the cereals in an instant, I will dictate a kiss to his/her/their mother and they wore the backpacks.

The driver of the pulmino was already before house. Teo me said a fist of regard making to tinkle my steel belly. Gena didn't abdicate his/her basin. I could not reciprocate, naturally. Neither I could perceive the touch of his/her red labbrucces. But I appreciated the gesture. I saw his/her children disappear over the door.

«What programs you have today?» he/she asked Daylight clearing.

«Exercises of posture, believe» I answered.

I got up me from table with attention. I was learning to be less awkward, but it is not banal to stir when don't have tactile sensibility in the whole body except that in the hands.

And that had been a true conquest; the doctor Of the you/he/she had placed some sensors of pressure inside my fingers and on the palm. They were simple, but I had employed six months to succeed in using them: my brain always owed riprogrammarsi for the use of new receptors.

To the beginning the brain didn't understand; I had everything one whole psychotic symptoms that you/they brought me to the nth refuge.

Then I gradually connected what, I saw to touch from my hands to that that the mind it felt; now I was able to know if and thing I touched. Not as for a human hand, but I could grab and to move the things without looking her.

«Be', I imagine that we will see us later. I go to the university» it said Daylight. «Hi, dad.»

I would have blushed for the irritation, if I/you had had a face. I moved my large head toward of her, even if I didn't need it, to see her/it. There was a band of optic sensors everything around my head and they worked rather well. Above all I did him/it not to upset: someone that observes yourself from the nape has to put quite a lot to uneasiness.

«My name is Angel» I said, giving a flat intonation to my voice.

Daylight and the boys were my family, but for their self I was Angel. My daughter quadrated me with his/her typical ironic look.

«Also of this you should talk to Berliz.»

I sent forth a low whistle of protest, as it often happened me when I was irritated. My brain modulated the frequency climbing to the ultrasounds. The neighbor's dog takings to furiously bark.

I made a consistent effort to succeed in stopping me. The unintentional demonstration of alienità embittered my humor. Daylight changed expression; he/she greeted me with the hand and it climbed on the scooter inserting the helmet.

«Now yes that you resemble me, daughter» I murmured staring at her/it with the metallic capoccione leaned on the glasses.

I saw the profile of my face reflected on the crystal: an iron can without prominences, with plates protection raincoats of the sensors for sight and hearing circularly prepared around my head.

I went to my room and I taken the mash directly pouring him/it to me in throat from the knapsack of the hospital. I manually closed again the orifice that only a reckless person would have called mouth. This time I had not poured a drop.

I dressed me, I went out and I closed the door of entry behind of me.

Luckily university was near house; that morning I didn't bear the perplexed looks of the passer-bys.

# 2.

This matter of the suits was ridiculous indeed; I perfectly realized of it, but to go around naked embarrassed me. Even if there was not big that to see. My body was stumpy and deprived of bulges as that of the robots umanoidi that is present in the houses of the rich ones to do the cleanings and to manage the domestic matters. I believe that if I had dismesso the suits I would be passed more unnoticed: nobody had ever seen a dressed robot. I don't know from where that attack of modesty came, I/you/they have reasonably been always uninhibited with my body. Perhaps it was for the thin structure: I had braccia and pylon legs, cave but resistant and very light, a great deal different from the aspect of a human limb. The torso was strong and flexible, strengthened by costolature in steel strengthened that they appeared on the surface under my leathery skin; once I had tried to cut me with a good knife: the blade was splintered and I had had to throw him/it.

I buttoned me with attention the only good jacket that stayed me, and I started me for the roads of New Sealon, encumbers of people.

To walk was me difficult. You/he/she would not have had to be him/it: of all the functions that I succeeded in completing with my body, that of the deambulazione was one of the simplest. In theory. According to doctor Berliz there was something of anything else other than it didn't go, and it had few to whether to do with my legs.

Sceptic, I insisted to pesticciare the pavement with my big feet, halfhearted and trembling. I seemed a dressed sloth and put on. People passed nearby me uninhibited: you/he/she probably exchanged me for an automaton from rich eccentric, of those that serve the coffee or they clean the garden with pretentious air and aristocrat, only that I walked worse a great deal.

The ugly one is that I encumbered: big and awkward as I was, many hesitated to overcome me on the sidewalk. More than one, especially people of age, often me him accodavano hoping that I diverted in some crossroad. Muttering of reproval were not saved. It was embarrassing. I had tried to convince Berliz to give me a mean of transport, but the physician camped thousand excuses.

«It walks among the people, Angel» it always said. «It is the thing most natural of the world.»

I reached the area of search of the university that brought my name afoot. Angel was written on many indicative poster. I overcame the gardens and I crossed the old one that for a long time he/she took care; it held a cut rose and you/he/she was sniffing her/it pleased, a gesture that for me by now it didn't have some meaning.

I could use my hands for the touch, the sight it was a recent conquest. The hearing I had almost immediately had him; memory when they implemented him/it to me, after months of sensory silence. I would have liked to cry. But of the taste and the sense of smell he/she didn't speak. In remuneration I had a beautiful baritone voice with endless possibilities of modulation.

I greeted the gardener with envy and him it reciprocated smiling me. It was always kind. I directly entered the laboratory. Oddly nobody was seen; there was a twig of donnina that was washing for earth, you/he/she had just given me a glance, and from her I didn't have more. I slowly drew near me not to frighten her/it. It seemed so vulnerability, with his/her quattr'ossas, that seemed me to hurt only her looking at her/it. I was about to ask her something when Vladi entered, an emotional young fellow with two round guanciottes always redheads. It was never firm, it got excited among the benches of the laboratory as a ferret. He/she worked with me, and on me. I would not have known how to exactly say what its competences were, I knew about him that it was a trainee and you/he/she had studied under the supervision of the doctor Of the. Which meant that owed to be smart. When he/she saw me a transient glance it struck me.

«Mr. Angel» he/she greeted; it rummaged in to drawer to the search of The don'ts know what. «You/he/she has found by chance me.»

«He doesn't work, today?» I asked.

It was the third consecutive afternoon that if they picked her/it up comfortable all how much, to the laboratory. The two preceding days the doors were really closed and to the telephone nobody responded.

«No, I regret» it told Vladi evident embarrassment. «I had prepared some tests but the doctor Of the you/he/she has told me that you/they could be useless.»

It was the first time that I felt a thing of the kind from Vladi: they usually submitted me to the most absurd experiments with sum anticipation.

«What is happening?» I slowly said, putting me in front of the boy. «Where Berliz is?»

Vladi inflated the cheeks and blushed a little. It seemed on the thorns. Then smanacciò for air, as if it was not able more than to sustain the tension of it.

«Well» it said. «So much would have known him however: it seems that they cut us the funds.»

«Thing?» I did me incredulous.

«Already» it said Vladi; angry, now. «That stupid. Months and months of job thrown away. I will have to restart another zero search for the doctorate.»

He/she spoke of his/her job on me: it was what you/they threw away. And therefore they threw away me. Without someone that hocked him to improve my body I would have remained I deprive of all: maintenance, assistance, energy. In a word: life. A certain type of life, certain, but it was all of this thanks to which had remained in small part human. A grandfather. A dad.

I had never shown to appreciate this delicate gift, I know him/it, even if I did the possible one to make the life family more serene possible.

They now removed from me him, that gift; above all they removed him/it from Daylight and his/her children.

«You are sure?» I asked, staring at Vladi with the maximum attention.

«No. I want to say. doctor Berliz has been pleading our causes for to few days, by now.»

«Also today?»

«Yes. It is to a reunion of the financiers. With me he doesn't unbutton, but it doesn't seem optimist.»

«Because you/he/she has not told me him? I could go with him.»

Shook Vladi the head.

«You are too involved. Those want only results. Numbers.»

«Resulted?» I did me in a sudden motion of aversion. «You/he/she has been done here an unbelievable job, from all of you.»

«Doesn't tell him/it me» it said Vladi, kind. «But I don't have idea of as you think of her/it that people. They have the mind of the bureaucrat and the spirit of the bookkeeper.»

«Where you/they are?» I asked definite.

I would not have allowed their to disconnect me the plug without saying mine. It was my life curse. I was afraid. A feeling that I had not tried for a lot of time.

«I don't think both a good idea» Vladi responded.

«Where?»

The youth appeared annoyed. When I appropriated his shoulder tightening the fingers it passed from the bother to the panic. I would never have hurt him, it had to know him/it: yet me said an address, wriggled him and escaped from the door. The donnina cast me another glance, with evident disapproval. I was amazed of myself for some instant, then I also went out me. I would have gone to that reunion, it was not far.

I bathed me in the by you go early-morning without liking: the sidewalk was full of people, but nobody took care of him of me. I didn't exactly know whether to do: nobody would have given me a passage, so much less I could call a taxi. I had to go for three isolated afoot.

I began to walk with the most greater possible appointment, but when I lowered the look I saw that the legs stantuffavano noisily against the pavement, in vertical: a snail was faster than me.

I remembered the words of Vladi.

«Round» it said during my exercises. «The movement has to be round and full. Relaxed, your legs are rigid as fireplaces of heater. Be creative.»

Creative. Certain. They were months that I tried to decently walk, I could not resolve the problem in two minutes. "Of accord" I told me," variations on the theme."

I started to rub the feet for earth.

«There am a lot of white uniform to stretch. Strength, irons from I stretch» I mumbled.

It worked. I brought the right one in before, slightly screeching on the sidewalk: I stretched the wrinkles of a spread out suit for earth. I passed to the left one. Then to the right one again. I went slow as before, in reality, but at least now the feet they showed the gasp to the horizontal motion. Some passer-bys around me studying me the sole to understand the utility of the operation.

I stayed me a second: it seemed me to sweat. No, I had to combine the two things: my fool walk in vertical and rubs her/it in horizontal. I had to stretch the white uniform lifting the knees. I focused me and I started to do him/it: I didn't race, obviously, but I the foot in oblique and I moved in before the weight of the body, I leaned the foot on a collar and I lifted the other to go to smooth a cuff. I walked faster, now, but I was not systematic: every footstep was brought in different way, so I advanced to jolts in precarious equilibrium. The passer-bys now fixed decidedly me had a good time.

«Strange automaton» it said an oldie.

«Dev'essere an old model» it said his wife.

They were behind of me, they slowly advanced, leaning both the weight on his/her own baton. I tried to get further my way me of it, but those reached me and they beat me on the legs with the batons.

«Get away of I return, boy» it said the old one.

I became infuriated me with myself. I accelerated. The method was the same, but I now walked (few) quicker. The legs darted me in inefficient way here and there, a man would be gotten tired in two minutes. I strove me to rotate her as connecting rods: I left back the two oldies and runs the journey inveighing against my deficiencies. People looked me at anchor, distracted and some surprise: I staggered, in effects, and I had a trajectory everything anything else other than to regulate, but I proceeded from now on however.

He/she wanted of it: I counted the minutes with impatience doing how much I was able. I finally stayed me. I had been slow, but I had employed less time of the expectation. I was really in front of the building of the reunion. I hoped not to have arrived you delay. I entered. To the entry there was no anybody, so I went to observe the synoptical panel against the wall; there were the indications to reach the offices and the room reunions that it interested me: it was to the fifth and last floor. There witnessed an elevator me: I went to the door, but a yellow strip blocked her/it and a poster with on writing" off duty" it dangled from the handle.

One didn't go: well I had to climb ten ramps of staircases afoot.

I forked the first one determined: I had to walk tilted now, not in plain. The attempt of approach almost made me fall: tells some soccers the first steps, then I lost the balance and I grabbed me to the handrail. Luckily it was strong.

I studied the situation, then I made another attempt. I bent the bust in before lifting more the knees. It was all right: I still bumped the steps, but I was standing without difficulty. Behind of I left a beautiful po' of stairs sbreccati.

«Anybody» I murmured. «Badly.»

The staircases were clear of, I could freely move without worrying me about soul long live. I felt some noise under the ramps but whoever pits he/she didn't mind me.

When I arrived in top, I would have liked to lay down me. I was not tired, obviously I could not be him/it, but I felt that I would have owed. I looked for the room where Berliz was.

It was easy, after all in the corridor there was a thick wood door disclosed and a big writing above the door that said, for the note," Room Reunions."

I set out me toward the door, remembering that I moved again now me in plain. I spun benino. I didn't see people from any part, the offices that I overcame they always showed empty chairs. I heard a couple of times a child call his/her mother, but the voice originated from a closed room and I could not listen to answer. The child still called; I ignored her/it, I had reached destination.

I opened wide the door and I peered at inside. The room was great and square, well furnished and comforting. It is empty.

«Late» mugugnai.

I had been too much slow. I didn't know the time, but if the building were almost empty, it had to be late indeed. The reunion was closed without me. I entered, even if it was useless. I looked at the great mahogany table and the numerous left chairs some in disorder. On the table there were some sheets with some confused doodles. It was a habit that I had also had me, when I was complete man: a way as another to kill the boredom of certain meetings of job.

«Mr.?.»

The voice, Argentinian, originated from my shoulders.

I turned me: the child of first you/he/she had entered the room and it looked me with apprehension. I understood her, he/she didn't know whether to manage me. It was nice, but not so small as I had believed. It had to have eleven or twelve years, with a beautiful suit to flowers and the picked blonde hair in a long tail of horse.

I crouched me with precision, not without effort, next to her.

«Tell me, dear» I exhorted. The ragazzines of that age have always aroused me a strong fatherly instinct. «I can do something for you?»

The child tightened a few the eyes, as to understand what ditches; I had spoken to her some from dad and her you/he/she had other urgencies, so you/he/she cataloged me as human and you/he/she allowed to lose my strange aspect.

«His/her mother» it said. «I look for her from some but I don't find her/it. You/he/she has told me to wait for her/it, but so much time has passed.»

The ring of the telephone interrupted her/it; there were two telephones on the table, for the truth, and both rang. From the door I heard that also the telephones of the near offices had started playing, everybody together, each with its particular trill. They kept on ringing for some instant; I hesitated, but the instruments refused to hiss him. The strangeness of the thing induced me to answer.

«Yes?» I cautiously said.

«What devil us ago her there?» it told a gruff voice the cornet.

«Thing?»

«The building had to be evacuates from a piece» it said the other. «It is the police. Goes from there. Immediately.»

«Thing?» I repeated.

«Goes out of the building. Doesn't he/she see that there is not more anybody? The foundations of the building are mined. Terrorist Globalisti. Devices too much complexes and little time to eliminate them. Goes of there of run. According to the timers it has only five minutes.»

The police officer brusquely removed the communication.

The terrorism globalista was a true sore, lately; you/he/she had already struck various zones of the city, often involving the defenseless population. I felt the ragazzina that went out invoking his/her mother. I remained a stunned instant with the telephone among the hands. I heard the scalpiccìo of the baby on the staircase, a thud and then a weeping I hijack. I recovered me. I leaned the telephone and I went out of the room most rapid that was able.

Damn my legs. Lanky as not I ever reached the ramp and I looked down: the ragazzina was fallen from the staircases and lay on the first landing an ankle holding himself/herself/itself with the hands. You complained of ugly. A pair of unexpected parolacces ploughed the air.

«You have made evil?» I shouted, some too strongly for a human being.

The cry boomed strong for the trumpet of the staircases reaching the low plans. The child shelled the eyes, but immediately resumptions to complain about himself/herself/themselves. He/she didn't answer me. I gone down that steps that separated me from her with great attention: I went to descent, I now had to move back the bust to the, and to hold up me to the parapet. I immediately reached not badly her.

«How it goes, small?» I asked.

«The ankle» it said her breathing strong. «A false footstep.»

You held the right ankle with both the hands, the lips assumed to a grimace of pain.

«We immediately have here to go out from» I said me.

«Because?» it did her.

It looked me in face, as if you/he/she could read something from my unchangeable features.

«We look for your mother. You/he/she is gone out of the building with all the others» I cut short.

Beautiful mother, to leave alone his/her daughter under those conditions. But, perhaps it was guilt of the police,: you/he/she had held back his/her mother and you/he/she was forgotten to recover the small one. However pits, someone a rebuke deserved him with the bows.

«How you call yourself?» I asked.

I handed my arm to make to lift the ragazzina.

«Sonia» it said her.

It grabbed my hand and it tried to throw him on; he/she didn't succeed in supporting the right foot.

«Angel. Let's hurry us. Your mother will be worried.»

Shook Sonia the head with neutral expression.

«Oh no, it is never it. It always says that I know how to get by her/it.»

«Uhm.» mugugnai, without adding other.

A lot of time didn't stay us. If we had indeed five minutes, we would have had to cross every ramp of staircases in less than thirty seconds. A great deal less, if I counted the necessary time to overcome the porch, to go out in the street and to bring us to safety distance. With Sonia under those conditions we could not make her/it. If the building had collapsed, she would be dead of sure and I would have followed her with every probability: my body is resistant, of accord but not so much to be sustained impunemente the pressure of some iron ton and cement.

Perhaps however be lives to sufficiency to see the body of the ragazzina torn to pieces close to me.

The only thought was unbearable. And terribly frustrating.

The anger climbed on me, fierce and wild, sweeping away the panic: I didn't accept the situation, it was impossible that this happened. Sonia could be it gives birth me or nephew. My indefatigable tutelar spirit exploded in all of his/her fury. The braccias trembled me for the fury: I/you/they have never been a violent, but if I/you had had under hand the person responsible of everything this, I would have reduced him to minutaglia. Terrorists: dregs.

«You make her/it to climb me above?» I asked to Sonia.

I had to check my voice to show I calm down me. It was not easy, for a long time by now my emotional state it had the tendency to be reflected himself/herself/themselves on my external demonstrations. It was as if there pits an impalpable connection among my human ego and the heap of ferraglia that I was.

«How?» it said Sonia.

«It grabs my arm with everybody and two the hands. Well, so.»

Sonia tightened strong and I lifted the arm above the head; the ragazzina got up with him. I handed the other arm and with a minimum of modesty I used the forearm, not the hand, to lean and to force on the gluteis of the small one lifting me her above the shoulders. I remembered as it was Daylight to that age: up to a few years before you/he/she had always been stuck to dad, also physically and without shame, but then you/he/she had started to defend the intimacy of his/her teen-ager body in very tender way.

I grabbed the ragazzina for the sides and I completed the movement leaning her/it on my shoulders: is sat on me, the naked gambettes now, hung rhythmically beating the heels on my breast.

I began to walk. The wrist of Sonia was to the height of my visual sensors: there was a beautiful clock from the rosy box, but I refused me to look at him/it; I knew that the time raced, you/he/she would not have served me to nothing to make backwards the calculation.

It was everything difficult: there was the ragazzina perched on me, apparently calm, and I had to proceed fast with an unexpected load.

A rhythm dictates me. One footstep at a time I began to go down the second ramp. I became me account that didn't go, there was something of held in me, something that prevented me from moving my metallic bier as I wanted.

«Thing there is?» he/she asked Sonia.

Also she had noticed him. I was slow. Lost slightly the equilibrium, because Sonia, in the desire of a more expeditious incedere, you/he/she was stuck out in before. To avoid to fall I the leg more than the usual one: I jumped a step, concerned on the following one with a small thud.

Was a revelation: perdindirindonzolina, walk was an incessant to fall in before!

I taken back the control and I slightly bent the bust advancing the baricentro; I lengthened the other leg to arrest the fall and the foot it struck the following step in the wrong point, near the projection of the kick. The marble him sbreccò of ugly and the foot fell later on the stair. But we were to the sure one: even if I didn't have sensibility in the inferior limbs, the perception of stability departed from the sole and reached as my brain according to a real unfathomable channel. Perhaps they were the vibrations or I perhaps had some sensors of which nobody had ever spoken to me: you/they had always been all very reticent ones on my hardware.

I launched me in ahead to fall again, then I stopped the inexorable tumble with the other leg.

Yes, to walk was a continuous action of courage.

«It is all right» it said Sonia, with the frowning forehead from the concentration.

It participated in my appointment. I was comforted me.

I had wasted second jewels, however.

«Eh!. Eh!.» I exclaimed, imposing me a lilt.

To every phoneme I lifted a zampone and I proceeded from now on.

«Eh!. Eh!. Eh!.» it made Sonia together with me, snickering for the absurdity of the scene.

I didn't allow her to distract me. I increased the concentration and I tried to give more harmony to the movement.

I kept silent, now it was Sonia that gave me the rhythm, constant and prompt.

As if he/she knew that there was no time to lose, but in reality with the impatience typical of the boys, began to increase the volume and the frequency of his/her cries; it so gradually did him/it that almost I didn't hasten of it: it was to the fourth ramp that realized to spin no evil. I didn't race, but I almost walked as a normal person. Any problem of equilibrium. Sometimes Sonia me of side because it accompanied the incitement happy sbracciando, but by now the equilibrium it was not a problem. I knew whether to do. I accepted to fall and then I resolved the thing recovering with the motion.

«You go. you go. you go.» it said the ragazzina, fast.

I went her behind work but I held hard.

This other ramp, more fifty-fifty run, was grinding her/it to duty. We would perhaps have succeeded.

«You/he/she is being all right» I told tall voice, unintentionally.

«Silent and it pedals» it said Sonia. «You go. you go. you go.»

I kept silent, surprised: you/he/she had used a tone that I would not be me expected, it seemed the typical one curried of Daylight.

"Here is another that commands me" I thought discouraged.

The mottos a glance of sbieco: it had a frowning expression, as if he suddenly realized that there was something of main point in game. It didn't seem as childish.

I returned to listen to his/her voice. It howled strong, now, infusing me a sense of urgency that brought me to expedite the footstep.

I didn't hold me more to the handrail, I didn't need it.

Sonia struck me the breast with the calcagnis to the rhythm of his/her vocal spur. I felt that all participated in the descent, my body and Sonia, the sounds that boomed around, the small openings of sun that filtered from the windows and that they gave light to the landings. I learned to earn some instant slightly skidding to the changes of direction; I slightly slipped arousing the anxieties of the girl, that it held back the breath and it was held well seized. It was not wrong: if I were fallen with her on the shoulders, you/he/she would harshly have suffered the consequences of it. Sonia didn't say anything, however, and it kept on inciting me.

It was an unreal atmosphere. It didn't seem we ran away for the life, that seemed me a simple job, a job that I had to complete and enough, without other tones.

I don't remember when Sonia stopped shouting. In effects, not us n'era more need, expeditiously walked and with a certain safety. A frightened man would have known better how to do of, but I was also getting by me. The last ramps were not a problem: I refused me to consider only also the possibility that was too late, I was so intent to deambulare that I had almost forgotten the emergency.

When I reached the atrium, I felt the sigh of relief of the girl: I was so determined that I reached the front door of entry of impetus and I opened wide too much it some, deforming him/it against the walls perimetrali of the building, even if it was big and heavy. A glass cracked him and the handle remained me in hand; to the devil, it was about to come down everything, that damage was not some one problem. We went out to the sun of the late forenoon. I lengthened the footstep to estrange me from the building and I almost finished our escape corricchiando.

I looked around me with a good dose of dismay: I would be me expected a cord of police officers, roads clear of and curious waiting for the inevitable one. There was instead the normal city traffic and the anda and it recalls some pedestrians on the sidewalks. Many grazed the building of which we were gone out without any worry. He/she was not even seen around a police officer. I stayed me against a ladylike building, to safety distance.

«You can make Angel go down me» it said Sonia.

I opened the braccias with which I had shut then unconsciously his/her legs until; Sonia made an agile manoeuvre and fell to the ground as a rubber band. It built with a feline release without showing some physical problem. I was without words.

«You have been in gambissima» it said Sonia.

It had a very serious tone, it looked me without smiling. I stared at her, aware that there was something that escaped me.

«Sonia is right. My goodness!» it told a voice my shoulders. I turned me: it was Vladi, and there was doctor Berliz close to him that it fixed me radiant. The world quietly continued around its matters; notaries different people that entered the building in procinto of collapse, calms and measured, to continue as always their work day. I imagined the offices that were repopulated.

«Nothing explosive» concluded.

«Nothing explosive» it confirmed Berliz.

They fixed me all and three gratified and I was pleased not to be able to express my emotions with the features of the face.

«We owe you some excuses» it said the physician blushing.

«You have organized well her» I said me.

I didn't know about thing yet he/she spoke, but it was obvious that the matter was very different from that that I believed.

«Yes» it admitted Berliz. «I regret it. You had to be under pressure to learn to walk. You didn't have the correct mental attitude. Some is cost there, to make to clear away that building.»

I thought about all that steps ruined by my simplicity: I hoped it dealt with expensive Italian marble.

I stared at Berliz with acridity: for that mass in scene I would have liked to divide him/it in sottomultipli of whole, and certain you/he/she would have been a great deal me easy. The physician realized my thought and dragged the feet as to make sketches on the sand.

He/she wore, as always, a pair of antediluvian occhialinis that gave him the mole aspect; if he/she put on them and ricalzava on the nose, in an usual nervous tic, of which you/he/she at that time was decidedly misusing. The thin nose, with the hairy naris and rotundas, it was the particular one of his/her face that he/she remained more engraved: a perfect arc of curve as a beak of owl.

Its look was usually forehand and indagatorio, from true psychiatrist, but now it was not able to sustain mine; I was turned toward of him with the whole body, stretched out from now on without almost realizing me of it, debated between a deaf anger and the joy for my progress: you/they had lowly used me, even if with good intentions, both them and mine. You/he/she had to certainly have been us another way, this it made me feel abundantly imbecile. But. The walkeds, my goodness! I raced even. How could I want to that people of it, if I now had this? Could walk as a man!

Beh. almost. But I was not in balìa of some scorbutic oldie anymore. And I could go for a walk for the city with Daylight and his/her children without doubly feeling me handicapped.

«Mr. Angel» it said Vladi placing side by side himself/herself/itself to the ragazzina. «I introduce her my sister Sonia.»

Sonia struck me a smile furbetto. I turned the capoccione in his/her direction.

«You have done a good job» I commented, looking at her/it.

You didn't show some embarrassment.

«Thanks» it said. «But not enough. I am dead under the rubbles.»

It pointed out the clock that had to the wrist: you/he/she had watched my times, probably the five minutes were overdue before we went out of the mined building.

«What a pity» I observed.

I made her a caress, aware that among us she was the only one to have risked indeed something: I could fall and to drag her/it with me, on those staircases, I could leave her/it to me to slip from above the shoulders. to lot of serious accidents came to mind that you/they would not have caused damages me, but from which she would be gone out battered. I looked at Berliz and Vladi with a critical look, for this, but naturally they was not able of recepirlo.

We remained in silence for some second.

They wanted to let the thing digest me, but I didn't need to reflect us big that.

«It is well» I said. «But that I/you/he/she am the last time that you make me a joke of the kind. Gimmicks other systems or I will remember to have two iron braccias.»

Doctor Berliz sketched a pale smile and the hand handed me. I slightly tightened her/it to him strong. The smile of Berliz disappeared as you/he/she had come.

«We agree» it said with solemnity.

It was a pact which you/he/she would not have missed.

To the borders of my field visual notaries that Sonia sgomitava Vladi to the mouth of the stomach. His/her brother, reluctant, it extracted the portfolio and a lock of banknotes handed her.

Sonia pocketed her without offering word.

Beh, this is really a mercenary world.

# 3.

The following weeks the mistakes in obsessive way: I had become a morbid walker.

To every time of the day and the night I went for the roads of the city grazing shops and residences, hungry of the new feeling of liberty that my body communicated me. I was free to move me as I believed, now, without making me ridiculous, without the work of the poor men true human beings.

Daylight bore for a longer time than I deserved, then one day was not able of it more. I had wondered aimlessly the whole night and I had reentered making a din of hell; for the truth I had need of rest and my mind it was not very shiny, so I didn't see in time the backpack of Teo left there for earth extended. Inevitably I stumbled and I fell on a piece of furniture which Daylight held a lot. They were not many the pieces been whole.

Naturally I had wakened up everybody. Daylight jumped down from the bed and meeting raced me.

«Aaahh!» it shouted when he/she saw the disaster.

It planted me before crossing the braccias. It was still delicious with that blue eyes cisposi, however the expression was stormy.

But Daylight was a lady. It didn't inveigh, it didn't howl: he/she spoke as it did to the boys when they combined a big of it. Slowly, with a whisper and the raging look.

«Dad.» it said. «You will go in bed. You will rest. Tomorrow you will do that that you will do and then you will lie down you to a decent schedule. You will stay in the bed the whole night. You will lift yourself for breakfast together with us. And so also the following days.»

You looked me threatening, without pretending to be him/it: it came her natural. It had before a steel marcantonio, but it was him to feel from now on himself/herself/themselves of tired spirit to her.

«Yes» I said me.

We went in bed. The thing ended there; since then I began to behave me in more regular way, but I would not have more lost the pleasure to walk.

# 4.

One day, a few times later I got up me some, later of the usual one and I went out for walking to the sun.

Podismo I free for a couple of hours, then I went me to the laboratory.

The boys were waiting me; Kurt and Vladi were polishing up around some with extreme reluctance. They were smart, but disorder was the their according to name.

Both were spellbound from me, if you/they had been able you/they would also have submitted me to the tests of pregnancy.

«Thing we have today?» I asked.

Kurt, a freckled youngster with red scrubbing brush hair, pointed out me a chair and a minuscule tavolino. The group of search was united to from a couple of weeks and great friend of Vladi had become immediately. The two was resembled of character, and both had been pupils of the doctor Of the during the university. Kurt was more youth of one year-old Vladi, but you/he/she would not be said, seen the sea of wrinkles that the eyes surrounded him. It said that it was for the vice to study at night little sleeping. All we granted him the benefit of the doubt, until not said some demonstration of his/her nighttime habits: it often finished his/her job remaining in the laboratory up to the small hours.

Tells a glance the issue leaned on the table.

«It seems a test for the Q.I.» I risked.

Vladi clapped the hands as a little boy.

«Good. Today, change of program» it told me encouraging to sit me.

«I have to suppose that you suspect that that I secretly know from a piece» I joked. «I am me rincretinendo. You want to know than.»

It was a wisecrack, but up to a certain point. It was the third time that you/they made me the test in the last six weeks. You/they were looking for something but nobody told me nothing.

I had tried to talk to Berliz and then with Of the but me alone propinavano of the gossips.

Vladi laughed in forced way and a pen passed me.

The first time that someone obviously passed one of them I broke her/it. Since then my movements had become sophisticated; I picked her/it up with delicacy from the hands of the young one and I sat with patience. Kurt pointed out me the clock to wall.

«When the hand reaches the three» it said.

I docilely attended the half necessary minute, then I started to read.

I immediately became me account that the test was strange: I would be me expected a difficulty I mediate tall, suitable to put me to hard test; instead it was rather simple to find the solutions. It had to be us something under. I employed two bystanders of the available time to end and I returned papers and pen to the boys.

They didn't deign the forms of a glance; they begged me to wait there and they went out both.

Life is a perennial attended.

I got up me and I went to the window, looking out: to New Sealon was a beautiful day, the sun created wide shades under the platans of the avenue that it wound among the laboratories.

To think that everything that had been created for me it had a that of satisfactory. Before my body died, there were only there fields. Then I remembered, in that lettuccios of hospital you/he/she was proposed me the improbable operation of espianto. In the last days I was kept in life from the cars, my poor man body didn't work anymore.

You/he/she had been a gradual trial and pain. Everything was initiated with a fall without apparent motive. I was to shop in a department store there when, without because and percome, earth I had found to: for a long time I had relived the moment of the fall, as if you/he/she had been this the point of transition among a life lived in health and the difficulties of the progressive illness.

In reality, to fall the first skirmish of the problem was alone, a symptom: but inside of me, in my conscience, in my memory, I lived her/it and I relived as it causes before my following misfortunes. Perhaps it was what had prevented for a long time me from walking well. I had discovered him me same: for my mind to walk was a permanent to fall.

However pits, my human body had begun to deteriorate himself/herself/themselves, I don't know if throwing me more in the dark desperation or in an irate condition of rebellious horror.

I was frightened, but also raged. Not only for myself. Daylight fought for withstanding the violence of the thing; it had to protect his/her children and to help me, but a lot of energies didn't stay her to take he/she takes care of him of its person. It was a bad period for everybody.

After some months only my brain had been intact, the illness had not touched him. And it reacted extraordinarily well to the treatments.

It was then that university made me the proposal. An idea that in itself it had something unnatural and obscene. Nevertheless, if I/you had accepted, I would have been able to live; in different way, but to live. The physicians would have had their guinea-pig to experiment, I would have had my family also bringing a concrete help to the home menage with the contributions of the university.

It was that the true thought that induced me. Daylight was marvelous with his/her/their children, but it was alone. Before his/her mother was dead, then her husband had planted her and his/her father now died also.

With that that it stayed of my voice, I explained her some possibility. You embraced her/it with energy. He/she didn't absolutely want that I died; in whatever form I/you had been, she felt the need of dad. This way I accepted; around me, slowly, that center of search had been born. But then I didn't know about the sufferings that he/she anchors they waited me.

I leaned the look on the students that walked with the books in hand; many of they knew me to them, even if nobody gave me confidence. I frightened a certain way.

I had a circular vision of my world; it attacked me to the sudden one: I was looking out, shoulders in the door, but while I was peering at the passer-bys, I also saw all the pictures of the four walls and the handle of the door that it rotated. I fought the sense of dizziness. I rippled.

«Angel» it said the new entered.

I turned me verse of him.

«Doctor Berliz» I said.

I saw that it held the test that I had just done. The physician you have to acknowledge my unstable equilibrium and it rippled the forehead.

«You feel well yourself?» he/she asked me instinctively making the gesture to support me. You withdrew to the last instant, aware that if I were fallen I would have dragged him with me.

«Yes, now yes.»

I had immediately recovered.

«How the other time?»

«Already. What happens me, doctor?»

Berliz told little importance the thing; it waved the hand with carelessness.

«You are suiting yourself for the potentialities of your sensors. That's all. It takes some time to pass from a binocular vision to a circular.»

Then it smiled at me pleased.

«Many colleagues didn't think that you would have succeeded there» it confided.

«Be'» I commented. «An explanation. Not badly.»

Berliz fixed me for a moment.

«We never tell you very, I know him/it. I assure you that it is better this way. I would like that I got used yourself to what you are without analyzing too much you. Don't be a heap of components that you/they work in a certain way, you are a person.»

I thought it on; it perhaps was not wrong, but by now you/he/she was unbuttoned and I thought about taking advantage of it.

«A person that you submit to test without explanations» I commented.

Berliz slightly puffed, then smiled.

«You allude to the test on the quotient of intelligence of today.»

«To that and the ACP. I have made him four times in the last eight months.»

ACP was for Deep Cerebral Analysis. The car had been realized by few and set on me. It was portable, but uncomfortable and heavy. Being that that I was I could wear her/it without problems.

Nobody had ever told me thing it exactly served. I imagined pits a kind of Cat scan of reduced dimensions.

Berliz nodded and sat, lost in thought.

«The fact is that. bushels changing» it started.

It seemed tense, perhaps aware that was marching on a mined ground. It went from there of my identity.

«It was in the account, naturally. Your brain now has different stimuli. You/he/she is lifted by the assignment to manage respiraton, blood circulation, diffused tactile perceptions and all the complex mechanisms of which we don't realize there to conscious level and that they compose the man. At the same time, we are equipping you with new resources. Your sensors are best of mine. My brain has stimuli primitives that it has to elaborate completely to extract something of it; you have more complex stimuli, because your organs of sense elaborate alone a big massive structure of information and they propose to your brain a more sophisticated input. For now bushels exploiting a small part of that input. But the layouts tell that the things evolve him. You are grabbing more. Your brain he is. reconverting. Some of the areas that now, with your new body, they would not serve you more, you/they are changing their function. They adapts. They activates when as a rule they would not owe. They elaborate new data. The old electroencephalogram is inapplicable to you, by now.»

It intended that, if I/you had made that tests, the car would not have more me recognized as human. It didn't tell him/it, but it was enough evident.

«And the test of the Q.I.?» I asked.

Smiled Berliz.

«One curiosity of mine. I regret if the thing has disturbed you. But I was right. Your intelligence is also changing. The acp shows a great cerebral activity. New active zones, with new you bring to the whole. Your Q.I. you/he/she is slowly increasing.»

I had felt so fool and incompetent, lately, that looked better it to see if it joked.

Berliz got up, slightly disappointed. I think it was waited that more interest I manifested for his/her words.

The hand handed me without not even fearing that I grinded her/it to him: it had a lot of more trust in me of how much I had of it me same. I tightened her/it to him with strength, but not too much; the hand I am never is not liked moscia, even from human being. We greeted there, Kurt and Vladi reentered chatting of the more and of the less. They wanted to continue with the program.

«Hands» Kurt began. «Taken of precision. We see how if it gets by.»

«Wings of fly?» I asked.

The two looked him without understanding. I moved the left arm in rapid way and I crushed indeed the index on the thumb with a satisfactory snap. I showed the two fingers with the fingertips to contrast, as if I had really torn a wing from a fly of passage.

Vladi fixed my hand; it tried to see the wing.

That two took seriously always me.

Wanted us a whole minute that they understood the joke and they continued with the anticipated tests.

# 5.

Daylight was a smart woman. He/she worked and from few you/he/she had taken back the university with notable appointment.

I would say that our cohabitation was not easy, but she had a serenity that I had not seen for years.

You/he/she was magnificently raising my nephews; they were open and they were not afraid of what they didn't understand. They were not afraid of me, above all. The black period was perhaps ended. Memory when it started: her husband, now ex, you/he/she had given her some thread to twist. It loved to bet on everything, it attended bische and casino and it often lengthened the hands.

The police had made the path to their house.

He/she didn't want children, when it was continually born the first takings to assentarsi and when the second was born it openly declared its indifference and it planted her/it. You/he/she had not called since then.

His/her children grew well, you/they had never known their father and certain some consequence they suffered her/it; but everything they were cheerful and balanced. Sometimes, when Daylight had to work and they didn't have school, I brought them to scorrazzare in the park; us n'era one enormous next to house, full of boys that as colts galloped everywhere. The grandparent were known some all, and they also knew of sight me. In the district I was known as an inveterate walker, but they started us different months knowing that I was not a simple automaton.

Some took to kindly greet me, others were too worried by my aspect to do him/it. If some sat on the same bench, incidentally they spoke of me. If they were distant, they freely did him/it: they didn't know what I could feel them being my notable hearing.

At times their comments were touching. The human beings know how to be valuable, when they want.

Daylight of certain it was him/it. I had never succeeded in telling her how much proud was of her.

I felt like seeing her/it; I tried to hurry me with that accursed tests to return soon to house.

But it was an error: I was all right. Kurt prolonged the tests increasing the difficulty of it. When I reentered, it was late evening. There were all and they welcomed me with heat. The small raced Gena me meeting and it jumped me to the neck.

«His/her mother brings us to the Whip, domattina!» it howled enthusiastic.

«Fantastic!» I commented. «And where? To the cinemas or to shop?»

The next day there was not school and Daylight it had the day off. My daughter smiled at me and the eye squeezed me.

«Because you don't come also. A bath of crowd cannot make you evil.»

It was probably right. The Whip was interesting; the construction was already it by itself. It was a skyscraper, but entirely anomalous. Indeed it had a conic form; it departed from a base circular of around one hundred meters diameter for then to tighten more and more himself/herself/themselves: to the height of forty meters it was already to the half, to one hundred it reduced him to a diameter of around ten meters. From the plain earth to there places of diversion, supermarkets and restaurants they were happened. Over, the Whip he tightened anchor, gradually, becoming transparent. You prolonged for other one hundred meters and it finished to point.

The good lightning-rod of the world.

The last lines, where he reached the three meters of diameter, you/they were used by the lovers of the strong feelings: the Whip, in fact, was not rigid. The winds moved continuously her, reaching to also move its point of two hundred meters in horizontal with arched and impressive bending. Everything this was possible graces to the soul of the building, a pipe of strengthened steel, strong and articulated, that departed from the center of the building and he/she drowned in a well of special concrete in the beautiful mean of the structures backdrops.

The project had been criticized from almost all the near cities, I exclusively believe for envy: from quite a lot years a non declared competition was baited in the whole region.

The cities did to competition to give shine to his/her own architecture and the various administrations they promoted artistic initiatives in every field.

Among my city and New Delon the competition had assumed by now power on tones, daughter as it was of an economic competition in which however were inevitably in advantage: New Sealon had the sea, New alone Delon the hinterland.

It seems that they were surprisingly initially an only city whose name has gone lost in the meander of a brief history; for how much many denied him/it, the hypothesis appeared obvious: only a bridge separated her, around five hundred meters suspended concrete on a channel artificial built decades before. Many wished a political and economic fusion between the two cities and the World Assembly of the Mayors it was more times pronounced in favor. In an epoch in which the globalismo was seen how I smoke in the eyes, this union appeared natural to the more. The hypothesis fluttered in the air.

In the meantime, the administrations of the two cities were pricked to story, sometimes with notable falls of style.

The Whip was perhaps the most recent lash of that ours political had inferto to the arrogance urbanist New Delon: it polled tall in the sky in perennial movement and at night it was a show that made beautiful show of itself to kilometers of distance. The colored lighthouses inserted in the terminal gun carriage projected cones of light waved her that they followed the phlegmatic movements of the structures under the push of the winds, illuminating to sweets waves the clouds and the surrounding districts.

The Whip was beautiful to be seen and the name was appropriate. Unfortunately the administrations of the near cities, with thin perfidy, you/they had found even more an appropriate name: the hair. And, in effects, it seemed really a big hair transplanted in the beautiful mean of the residential center. The thing was worsened by the monorail suspended railroad that passed to few meters from the construction: you/he/she had been done in antecedent times, but case wanted that the pylons of support a great deal dense and the same monorail they seemed an enormous comb in procinto to rearrange the rebellious pelone.

However, there had never been, and I would have been careful not to go us. Luckily I had a good excuse.

«I regret» I said. «I have something to see in TV.»

It was true. Kurt had delivered me the recording of the motor tests of the day, recommending to view them to me.

In effects, it was useful: it was the only way to see how I managed my body in the various situations of crisis. It was in that way that I discovered, for how much it seemed impossible, that was assuming him/it same way of walking of when I was everything of flesh.

Daylight struck me a grim glance, to tell me that he/she knew very well that I was pleased of the appointment.

The rest of the evening I passed him/it playing with his/her/their children under the pleased eyes of Daylight. Those were and they are my best moments.

The evening I turned up them the covers and I lay down me on my bed. I was sleepy. In effects, you/he/she would be been able to say that the thing that I did in more normal way was to sleep.

# 6.

I felt Daylight and the small ones that went out of house.

I had remained to sleep until late, the sun was already tall.

I felt the need to rest, and it was also a precise recipe: my brain had need to elaborate again the progress of the day, to classify them and to prepare them in the most useful and orderly way.

Teo sneered from shameless while Daylight inserted all in car. I felt the auto that departed and it quickly got further. I gone down from the bed and for first thing I fed me (word more suitable of I ate); I didn't dress me, but I gone down dabbasso.

I felt me lazy, that day. I turned on the viewer after a beautiful po' and I taken to stare at that iron guy suit with the Sunday suit while it was making stunts and it indulged in humorous remarks with his/her two preferred analysts.

Two hours passed in a lightning.

I was really annoyed. I interrupted the video to flow some news-bulletin; I often did him/it, when I had time, in the vain hope that the announcer of turn got up and shaking the dismayed head said: «Any ugly news, today everything magnificently goes.»

I passed soon to the films. I pitted quite a lot of it, then I delayed a few minutes in more on an old film of Frankenstein. You/he/she had been digitalizzata, restored and partially integrated with new impressive scenes.

Obviously, me immedesimavo in the monster.

After some I was annoyed me and I conscientiously gave to see my movements in the laboratory again.

I noticed some improvement, I was certainly more aware of my massive structure and of the world around me.

After another mezz'ora I had of it enough; I made a rapids glance of the commercial channels and I returned to the news.

There were the images of an explosion or similar stuffs, observed by earth and by a helicopter. I didn't understand well, but it seemed involved a train that had diverted the fifteen meters that separated him/it from the ground of the city jumping. Around everything was a disaster, a great deal more apocalyptic than I would be me expected from a derailment. Incuriosito, lifted the volume.

«. corpses and wounded.» it said the announcer, with to certain emotional share «. because of to probable terrorist attack. The business center is inagibile and the first teams of firemen you/they are arriving on the place.»

I saw an ampler panning.

The wagons of the train were shed on the ground, full of wrecks and rubble. The carriage and the first wagons had jumped of under from the raised again rail. Motive appeared evident: in the point in which an ample curve started, the rail missed. An explosion or a structural yelding had removed part of the manufactured article, and the train had simply continued right, launching himself/herself/itself with a leap of about thirty meters against the plain earth of a building that I didn't recognize, so much it was malridotto. You saw the tail of a carriage that anchors it stirred oscillating on the terraces semidistrutti of the entry. All the rubbles told that the superior part of the building had to have collapsed, and this was strange: you/he/she had been the low part stricken of it, it would be due to entirely collapse or to entirely be standing. Then I saw on the ground something incomprehensible: it was a steel snake from the enormous body that he/she embraced to spiral the damaged building; it pressed on the residual structures, big as it was, and it owed to have had a part among the causes of the collapse.

The means of the firemen reached explained sirens.

The police was surrounding the zone to prevent to the curious ones and to the imprudent willing from drawing near too much.

The announcer, after a break of effect, started over describing the event.

«. the train has harshly struck the structure inserting since himself/herself/itself as to wedge in its neuralgic parts. whoever has planned this you/he/she has been diabolic.»

I stopped listening. I had understood what the serpentone was and because I had not recognized the building.

The train was inserted an hour in the Whip to two hundred penetrating up to the base of the long steel tentacle. The bump had to have been dreadful: its base had to have gone out so battered of it that the enormous duct, not more bound but sideways moved rather by the strength of the hit, you/he/she had lost stability. The images that flowed me before were clear; although shocked, a part of my brain appraised that the damage had brought the duct to stir more than ruining the infrastructures of containment and sabring the inside and external surfaces of the skyscraper. Out of control, that enormous serpentine mass had demolished what it found: the whole building had almost collapsed, leaving perhaps something of I live inside the business center that occupied the close-ups.

I didn't succeed in stopping looking.

Daylight and the boys were there inside. What gave sense to everything how much it was there inside.

The attack of panic came to the sudden one.

I could not move.

It was a feeling that I had tried other times especially in the first months when my brain had to adapt himself/herself/themselves to live in the new body. I had not been able to act, in that breakers, neither to speak. It was terrible. The medicines had helped me, then; my brain had been of it practically soaked for choice of the physicians.

But there were not now medicines to resolve that.

A terrible feeling, of total and irremediable impotence, it froze me. I felt me dead, worse how dead. Images and comments surrounded me.

Then I looked at the photo on the table of Daylight, Teo and smiling Gena; I had gone off her in a windy day, in the middle of the snow. All laughed and they were red in face, with the glimmering hair of crystalline of ice.

I lowered the look. I had the hands in womb as a tired oldie.

But I was not an oldie: my hands were big and mighty. I had learned to use well her, in a way that it often surprised the physicians that were around me. I was not unarmed. I was able. My humor changed: something inside of me started to rebel to the fierce sense of impotence. I was able. I was not a weak human being anymore predisposed his although to the fatalism, the things were a lot of that knew to be able to do.

Something inside of me hardened him, it was an almost physical feeling: I imagined to still have the eyes and that these tightened him in a new and absorbed determination.

I focused me on the events studying a line of approach that allowed me to help my family.

Now I had here is an assignment, other didn't serve. My horrible carcass would perhaps have been useful to something.

I extinguished the emotions, or I perhaps gave them a different direction. It doesn't care. There was no time to think.

There was as an explosion inside of me. It was magnificent: until then I had always fought for repressing the emotions, because control seemed me the only sensible road to cross for facing my condition. But now I let me go. I jumped standing and courses toward the door. I didn't succeed in checking me and I didn't want: the door exploded in so many splinters dispersing himself/herself/itself in the garden, but I didn't stay me.

The Whip was to five kilometers from there, I had to cross different isolated full of traffic and pedestrians. I turned for the park: from there the road it was longer, but I would have been able to freely move me. I increased the walk; I was walking rather strongly, at least as a man, and very more than an automaton. Those are not done certain to race. I mentally thanked the researchers that had me endowed with that body.

But to walk could not be enough; said regularities to the movement and I pushed more, losing more times the equilibrium but recovering well always. I pushed anchor, until I didn't reach the limit that allowed me bad punishment not to fall. I raced. I was ridiculous, certain; it seemed me to have a pompous and unnatural style, very different from when I raced behind a boy ball. I tried to return to that remote past, to the feelings that pervaded me when I pursued or I was pursued. The tactile ability of my hands was essential: the perception of the wind on the palms belonged to the human experience of the to race and I didn't now feel anything. The braccias hung, without giving big lilt. No, the braccias had to undertake himself/herself/themselves how much the legs, baiting those mechanical sinergies at the base of the fast movement. I tried there. I counted every armful for some minutes, until I didn't realize me that the torso followed that gestures slightly rotating, allowing the basin to lean out himself/herself/themselves in ahead to anticipate the following rush of the leg. I went even more quick, as I believed now to be able.

I owed to definitely have overcome a kind of block, my body communicated harmony to all of my sensors.

The autos slipped an hour nearby me with their miserevolis fifty. I felt the howl of the wind that flowed through the ravines of my limbs forellati.

People saw me pass as a train, someone you/he/she frightened him of ugly: I gathered some amazed comments and the whistle of a police officer. I ignored that world and I accelerated. I didn't now succeed in seeing well me the braccias, they confused him with the colors of the surrounding environment, fast tant'ero.

I entered the park to all speed. I didn't realize of it, then, but my feet left enormous imprints in the lawn, lifting whole blocks of earth that the heels projected aloft. I sank some in the ground but I didn't take care of of it.

Of his/her children that played around there jammed to wide open mouth. I revolved them.

There was a merry-go-round in front of me, luckily nobody had been climbed there still. I jumped her; I had not jumped before never, but I still picked up me racing and bringing the more baricentro in low. For an instant my knees got up more aloft than the head, then I detached the leap. I had to jump on at least four meters, because the merry-go-round squeaked very a lot of in low. Concerned sinking until above the ankles but I kept on racing resurfacing to every footstep.

Around the sounds disturbed me, so I removed the volume: I had never been so assembled. I saw from now on to me and behind, without turning the head; to my sides I saw the bushes whipped by my body, I gathered the pulsations of wings of the birds above of me and the weak twinkling of the feet that you/they reflected the early-morning sun.

The park was very great, it reached the Whip and over.

I didn't employ big whether to come on the place of the disaster. I already saw in distance the men of the police you sue to make reliefs on the railway line and a the halves of the firemen that tried to make himself/herself/themselves road in that bedlam. Some ambulance flashed, parked nearby there.

I came unmolested to hundred meters from the Whip, or from that that it stayed from there; I brusquely braked, lifting a portion of lawn of about ten meters, that got up arricciolandosi under my feet. But I was not good as I hoped: I had tilted too much for braking and I slipped on the damp grass badly falling for earth. I was still fast; trying to support me on a hand I ploughed the ground with the fingers and I actually sank to the elbow. My body rotated: I had definitely lost the control. For an instant I thought about succeeding in putting again me standing giving me a sudden impulse, but I got only to rotate more still inserting the feet in the ground. I lifted a lot of sod.

Without understanding as I had done, seeds I was firm laid down to earth with the four nailed in arts to the ground in disjointed way. I hoped that nobody had seen me: I would not have made a beautiful figure.

Then it assisted me the absurdity of my thought; in another moment I would have found him funny.

I got up me standing, calmed by the furious run, and I slowly drew near me to the first barriers.

I appraised the situation.

It seemed that the first three floors had been standing, but they were completely covered by the deposits. He didn't succeed in even not seeing a window of the façade. The transparent wrap of the long metallic soul was disintegrated and you/he/she was scattered everywhere; the walls perimetrali of the lowest plans was capsized and the conic form of the construction had favored the impilamento of the materials provoking further collapses.

I went beyond the barriers attracting the attention of a police officer. The man came verse me quadrating me with attention. I had to be a funny show; great and big, dark and stained with earth like a child blunderer.

The police officer he stopped behind of me putting himself/herself/itself the hands against the sides. He/she didn't know what I was staring at him/it with the nape. It opened the mouth, but I was quicker.

«Agent Suiko» I said; I had read the name on the badge. «There is a way to enter there inside?»

The man beat a couple of times the eyelids: you/he/she was not waited that I called him/it for name. It was uncertain on what ditches. A robot would not have had my attitude, neither you/he/she would have spoken to that way.

«To the moment we don't know him/it» it cautiously said. «You who is?»

I looked around me. The heavy means to remove the collapsed infrastructures had not arrived yet.

«Your first bulldozer» I answered.

It looked me at some stunned.

I left him/it and I drew near me to the building; there was no verse to gather him, it didn't recognize him nothing.

I saw a group of people to brief distance that you/they consulted a big sheet of paper. I drew near me. I had had the correct feeling: they were the plants of the construction, if you/they were gotten him in hurry.

They gave me the shoulders, you/they had not seen me yet.

I still drew near me and I peered at above of them studying the entrances and the inside runs. I memorized how much I was able; I could not go behind that projects, I needed the free hands. An engineer lifted the head, suffered a suspicious, and he turned verse of me. I lifted a hand.

«Hi» I said.

That strabuzzò the eyes, imitated immediately by the colleagues. I removed from his hands the paper and I ended to study me her, while the presents let me do. A pair of police officers incuriositi was being approached. Some officers of the fire confabulated more in there. The police officers came verse me, I passed nearby them and I went to the officers of the fire.

«Mr.?» I said, to attract their attention.

They looked me amazed, one the helmet removed from him to look better me.

«You would like to move you please?»

«Certain» it said one of them.

They moved, but not enough.

«About ten meters, prays» I added.

They did him/it with reluctance. In front of me there were the rests of a dividing wall in mattoncini. I didn't exactly know about thing I was able. I drew near me and the sferrais a fist.

I had been too much cautious: the wall resistette. Of it sferrai a more convinced second and the wall he crumbled. I moved the debris from a side.

Behind there were the twisted grilles of the balconies, well you insert in blocks of concrete. I grabbed the bars and I folded up her, I did a fagottino of it and I launched him/it to a pair of meters from me.

Now me the real balcony protected from now on him, an insole in cement armed thick fifteen centimeters, long four meters and wide two. It had to almost weigh three tons. I struck her in the center with a deafening noise, and then anchor and anchor, until the concrete it came away to bits discovering the inside armor of steel. I kept on crumbling, until it didn't seem me enough. I dragged the insole reduced to a colabrodo out of the boxes.

I expected me to see the entry, but there was a big ring of deformed steel, once certainly part of the long duct. It had to weigh around five hundred kilos. I lifted him/it and I did him/it roll far. The men in the near they shifted him at the right moment.

You/he/she was not ended: a wide slice of concrete, thick sixty centimeters and of around ten meters you square it was risen from now on to me, nailed in in good part in the ground. It was also an impassable barrier for me.

«You try with this» a fireman told me throwing me the arm. It held an absurd martellone, entirely made of steel. It maneuvered him/it to work. I easily grabbed him/it trying the weight of it.

«You look» it said anchor pointing out me the thick block. «It is damaged.»

It was true. Of cracks you/he/she was covered and through the greatest the rods of the iron were glimpse.

I taken the hammer and I struck one of the cracks. It widened, of little. I struck stronger, twice, without great results.

I grabbed better the utensil and a rhythm dictates me; every hit boomed making to wave the adjacent material. I had to be careful if I didn't want to cause other collapses.

I taken to strike less strongly some, but I increased the speed.

I was a car, now, a mighty and well oiled car; I struck rapid watering the outskirtses of iron fragments and cement. I felt that something didn't go, I stayed me; the hammer dangled me from the fist, crooked and deformed.

«Another?» I asked.

The fireman already held the exchange. Awake type. I started over threshing of good lena, until the block he/she didn't introduce a passing crack and it finally divided him in two parts. I had not gotten big that: from an enormous wall I had drawn two of them. I shaken the head. Another fireman being drawing near and you/he/she appraised my progress.

«I would say that it needs to change approach» it commented.

«Already» I said. «I will try to upset him/it.»

The base of the wall disappeared in the subsoil. I put me in front of the wall and I knelt me. I started to dig as they make the dogs. I immediately made the unbreathable atmosphere and I confused me in a cloud of dust. Two minutes were how much he/she wanted us to eliminate a pair of meters cubes of mixed earth to stone.

I struck the wall to all strength; it waved, but in way as soon as perceptible. I jumped him above and I started to wag me as a monkey, trying to oscillate with regularity. The two halves the wall they stirred. I lost the grip and I fell to the ground as an idiot.

«Careful!» it shouted a fireman.

The mass of concrete had followed me; you/he/she was falling me I set. I commanded to the legs to bend himself/herself/themselves and I jumped as a frog falling there unbecomingly six more meters in. The wall touched earth lifting another dust cloud.

«Beautiful job» it said a vigilant bystander of the fire.

Now he/she was seen a dark ravine that brought toward the entry of the building. Or, at least, so I hoped. The hole was enough great to be left to give me through. I peered at inside, regulating my sight on the infrared frequencies. It was a narrow hole edged by a horde of different materials, all compressed ones and in unstable equilibrium. The fireman did for entering. I appropriated his shoulder.

«No» I said. «I go. There is a beautiful risk of collapses, there inside.»

«You are great and big, but I don't believe that I/you/he/she am invulnerable» it beat the man.

«I am him/it more than her» I affirmed.

The last thing of which I had need was a handpiece of firemen that made to fall other structures looking for the survivors. My priority was to look for Daylight and the boys, I didn't think about nient'altro. I slipped me in the hole and I taken to slowly slip.

My sight dearly worked; I met a girder that the footstep blocked me, luckily not too much big. I grabbed her with both the hands and I forced; the steel him slowly flexed, allowing to pass me. I had crossed five meters, perhaps six, in horizontal sense.

According to my calculations I was almost me in correspondence of the external masonry. If I had fortune a look in before and I would have seen a window; I slowly writhed me shifting some bricks. From now on to me there was the entire portion of the wall perimetrale in armed cement. No windows. The fate didn't help me. I tried to move the steps of the stairway of entry that pressed me the back: they were practically pulverized, the train had passed from there before entering the building.

I looked me the hands: they were dirty of earth. There for there I didn't understand, then I moved my body and I saw that I leaned on a mixture of marble, cement and soil. With the hand I quickly dug and I found a battered attic. I broke down him/it; a wave of light wound me from under. I taken back the normal vision and the light it did him weak but enough.

Under of me, to around three meters, there was a floor in raw cement. I opened even more the hole and I jumped down. My feet produced an impressive boom.

I knew where I was me: it was buries him of the building.

Somehow I had entered.

The environment was weakly illuminated by the lamps of emergency, the tide had to be jumps, or you/he/she had been disconnected from someone to prevent the fires.

I looked around me: yes, I was in the scannafosso, the long corridor that turned around the building. I looked for a door that conducted me more to the inside and I almost immediately found her/it.

I opened him: I was a vain technician; there were various pictures voters, of the big pomps and pipelines that branched him penetrating in various points of the ceiling. I didn't take me he/she intrigues her/it to deepen: I squirted out racing, I found some staircases that brought above to the plain earth, but when I took her I saw that the last ramp had collapsed under the weight of an enormous block of iron and cement. From there him it didn't pass; I returned back and runs other rooms. I started to move me in frantic way, passing from a room to the other, frustrated by the impossibility to climb to the superior plan. I reentered in the scannafosso and I looked for another door.

I found her after a beautiful po.' Mi ci infilai e trovai il vano tecnico di un ascensore. I opened the door and I looked at the insù. My sight passed to the infrared one without I made me of it account: I saw the vain one that lengthened in vertical for around thirty meters, until a mass of deposits you/he/she had ended with to close aloft there tightly it. The elevator was not seen, during the collapse it was had to find to the superior plans, but its ropes still dangled to everything height, you insert in the taking of the rubbles. I grabbed a rope: I would have been climbed making a beautiful scaling.

I climbed me and I made a pair of meters; to the sudden one I felt a distant noise and the rope it lost rigidity. I was falling, my weight had given her the hit of grace. I fell to the ground instinctively covering me the face. The rope fell me I set, spiraleggiando.

It was a beautiful blow, a human being would be gone out malridotto of it.

«Curse» I murmured.

I looked on: only I now noticed a light light, ten meters above of me; it filtered from the doors of the elevator to the close-up. The doors of the plain earth, more neighbors, appeared ax, and I understood the why. The central portion seemed damaged, there was a block of cement of big dimensions that pressed on it; a part had broken down the glass door opalines and it stuck out, showing the stump of the big iron rod that had punched a shutter. Difficulty to pass, from there. I had to try to the close-up, but there were no staircases, neither grips, the surface of the vain elevator was in thick concrete I deprive of prominences. And they were ten meters.

I didn't have idea than I was able of to jump.

I crouched me to earth and I focused me a moment.

I jumped aloft using all of my energies, without a precise idea; I stayed suspended for a moment, few above the door of the elevator damaged, therefore I reverted.

I had covered around necessary ten six meters.

It came me an idea: I put me shoulders to the wall of the doors of elevator and I crouched again me. I was about to do something of difficulty for me. I jumped the more possible, aloft and toward the opposite wall; I went to beat you with more energy of the expectation, but I reacted well: I amortized with the braccias, then I aimed the feet counting on the asperities of the raw concrete and I jumped back to the.

I was not able of to turn flying me, the thing would have asked for great bodily awareness, however it was all right however: my back struck the wall from which I had departed, but more aloft, and immediately sbracciai to the back holding the fingers of the united hands. The left struck the cement, but the right sank in the flowing doors of the close-up as they were of butter. I immediately opened the fingers to avoid to revert of under, harpooning the pierce metallic plates. I dangled as a suspended ham.

I slowly threw me on. When I was to the height of the door, I also struck strong with the left hand sinking in the plate up to the elbow. Then I rotated my body.

The rest was easy: I reduced it brings her/it to accordion and I leaned the feet on the floor of the plan. Finally. There was there also the weak light of the lamps of emergency. I walked for the corridor and I met the staircases that salivate to the superior plan. They were inagibili, but it didn't care: the business center and the restaurant where Daylight often went with his/her children both they were to the first two floors.

I crossed the corridor noticing the damages on the ceiling provoked by the fallen structures on the attic soprastante; who hardly found to the superior plans you/he/she had been able to get by. A tear in the ceiling allowed me to look than above. It was dark, but that that I succeeded in seeing it didn't promise anything of good person: a lot of material pressed from above, I didn't know how much you/they would have withstood the attics.

The corridor flowed in the vast saloon of the center; I was me to the tallest plan, on the vast terrace that projecting of a pair of meters edged the whole exercise.

I had a perfect vision, from there, but dramatic: there were many corpses. The concave ceiling was extremely damaged, a quantity of rubble had pierced him bombing clients and operators with a terrible sassaiola. Whole blocks of cement were fallen on the crowd, which the pieces of the same attic was added. There was not there light: the large majority of the lamps of emergency had gone lost and only thanks to my nighttime vision I succeeded in observing that scene.

The attack of panic him riaffacciò, but I quickly reacted; I raced dabbasso inserting the staircases and I moved me among the dead bodies looking for my daughter. They were so as that despaired. Although that point cared few, I understood the reason for all that corpses. You/they could not simply be been the rubbles; from the ceiling disastrato was penetrated the slabs in glass that you/they wound the long tentacled duct, by now disconnected by the rest of the structure. Falling from that height in whole pieces of different meters, to the impact with the ground they were as I exploded, lifting a hail of sharp fragments as knives that were squirted in all the directions. A lot of people that lay next to me were horribly mutilated, there was everywhere blood.

A sudden noise made me lift the head: a portion of ceiling came down, followed by a heterogeneous whole objects, among which other dead bodies.

The impact with the ground was puzzling.

Something told that I didn't have a lot of time before the structure collassasse. I would have employed too much for finding Daylight, this way. Courses again in the terrace and I leaned out me.

«Daylight!» I howled.

I howled for a long time, I regulated at the most then the volume of my artificial voice; the voice he would be some distorted, but it didn't matter.

«DAYLIGHT!» I howled.

The environment amplified me in impressive way. The name of my daughter echoed for a long time. Dictate me for the nth turn of the idiot: my hearing could do more also. I also amplified gradually that, until I succeeded in feeling two things that frightened me quite a lot: the scrunches of the structures some everywhere and the weak and suffering voice of my daughter. I rotated the head trying to direct her/it in the correct direction, more directive making the captazione of noises. I individualized the point of origin of the call and courses for the terrace without minding nothing: Daylight called me.

The voice was near, now; I and I saw to few meters of the stretched out figures and a session, supported against the wall. It had the face covered with blood. I drew near me. The voice originated from her. It was a young woman, but it was not Daylight.

«There is someone?» it said the woman with the trembling voice.

«I am here» I said.

I still drew near me and I stooped me on her. Its face was full of cuts and the eyes were wounded. You/he/she had tried to cover them with a handkerchief, but to judge from the lesions the cloth had to have suffer soaked of blood. It was not more moved, remaining waiting for help. I could not stay there, I had to look for Daylight. Then I thought that also she was the daughter of someone; perhaps it also had some children she, waited even for him to house, you/they had seen the facts in TV and they hoped that any guy, done of meat or of iron, it brought him her healthy and salute.

But, if I helped her, I would not have been able anymore perhaps to do the same for Daylight and the boys. It was a moment of terrible indecision, I can never forget him/it. A kind of torture. But it was the young woman to shake me: about he complained, not with me, not for me, simply expressed his/her suffering without asking.

I gently picked her up among the braccias. After the physical efforts that I had done, it seemed me light.

«It makes her/it to tighten me to the neck?» I asked.

«Thing is?» churches her. «A kind of overall there is a fire?»

You/he/she had touched my skin.

«You don't worry him. There is no fire.»

I raced to the vain elevator from which I had come. I looked of under. A leap of ten meters with a wounded in arm.

«Laces me strong» I warned.

I jumped, holding more aloft the woman that I was able. Harshly concerned damaging the floor and I left that my braccias with above the youth they gradually lowered, amortizing the hit for how much I was able. I stopped the braccias to few centimeters from the ground, but also so I felt a sigh of pain. I returned of run in the scannafosso, I placed the wound for earth and I jumped striking the ceiling of it to widen the opening from which I had entered. Now the hole was enough.

«Hey, face attention!»

A fireman was observing my stunts with interest.

«What us ago here?» I rather asked irritated.

«We have widened and consolidated the tunnel that has done. Did he/she think indeed that we would have remained to wait?»

Obviously it was right.

«It makes her/it to take the wound?» I asked.

The man shook the head.

«It will have to think of us her. Me it has to go down there under.»

I was about to answer him for the rhymes, but I didn't have time to quarrel. I jumped aloft of around three meters and a half landing in the ravine from which I had lowered. You/they had widened and also consolidated that.

The tunnel was comfortable; I could also pass well us with the girl in arm. You/they had studded him of dense pilastrini in steel, putting some beams to pylon to sustain the ceiling. The everything damnedly had a fragile air, but you/they had been incredibly fast and to the moment that was the thing most important.

I walked for some meter and I found me to the open one.

The sun attacked me, brutal. I estranged me from the building and I went me to the nearest ambulance. There was a lot of people around me, but I didn't mind anybody. I deposed the wounded on the stretcher.

«It will be well now» I said, some too much optimist but hopeful.

«Thanks» it said her, turning himself/herself/itself toward of me, even if you/he/she could not see me.

I estranged me from the vehicle for lasciar to do to the physicians.

«Angel?» someone said behind of me.

I turned me. It was a police officer. I would be raced again in the place of the disaster, but to feel to call me for name stopped me. The police officer smiled and pointed out a little far.

Standing on the grass there were my nephews and my daughter, that it fixed me with the hands on the mouth.

I fell to the ground abruptly. I would have very wanted to be able to cry.

# 7.

«But. looked, dad» it said Daylight with the voice broken by the emotion.

I didn't say anything; I didn't have the suits anymore, I didn't remember where I had left them, or perhaps I had never put them, but it didn't care.

My ugly carcass was scratched all, but this didn't even care.

It is Daylight you/he/she had called me dad: this didn't also care. I remained some in that position, with the knees sunk in the grass; it seemed that that day I didn't succeed in doing anything else other than to dirty me of earth.

«We were still in the park and we have seen you pass as a rocket» it said Daylight. «When I have known about the disaster, I have imagined the rest.»

I went to embrace my family. Teo knocked me on the shoulder.

«Because you have not told me that you know how to race so?» it told me. «The neighbor turns you do him/it with me in arm, eh?»

It was my family; I amplified all of my senses to appreciate better the presence of it. They were safe, and therefore I was also it me.

The fireman sly person, what had pushed me to go out of person with the wound, came me near smiling.

«You/he/she has done me him» I told him, thankful.

He fixed me.

«Be', have we ended for today?»

It looked me, in attended.

I brought the look on the destroyed building, then I peered at Daylight.

«No» I answered. «You, regret daylight to return alone to house with his/her/their children? It seems that I am busy a job.»

«No, dad.»

Daylight openly smiled.

I turned me to the fireman and I encircled his shoulders, pushing I pour him/it our hole. The feeling of urgency returned. There inside it was full of daughters and children of someone. I accelerated, until my limbs they became too much fast to clearly be seen.

# 8.

The corpses of the Whip were hundreds. Was it a very strong experience, that harshly put in discussion my same humanity; me, that was made of iron, to comparison with that whole undone meat, affected or simply wound, with that acute suffering for me now only pale memory. as The coulds keep on defining me hand?

I had transported about ten bodies to the outside, with an increasing uneasiness; then something in my mechanisms was clogged and I had begun to move me with difficulty; I knew that there were no damages of some type, but my corpaccio refused to obey me.

The matter was simply too penosa.

I had to find the system to give help in other way: I employed me to open new breaches, and it was the correct choice. I started over nimbly moving me and says ease to more rescuers to access the environments disastrati.

I also saw beautiful things, however: the appointment of professionals and volunteers and a lot of solidarities from the whole citizen. And not only: also the near cities, with which we usually entertained some political relationships cool of it, deprecarono what seemed certain being a merciless attack; they sent even us some helps. Even New Delon, city our sister and commercial avversaria for a long time it condemned the event showing us liking.

I had, unfortunately, also a moment of celebrity: some damned journalist had wandered among the rubbles to his/her piacer and you/he/she had seen as I hoped. The day later one photo of mine appeared (very bad, luckily) on the web and to the TV and an article (excellent, for adversity) that he/she spoke of me and of my life. The journalist had dug with adroitness in the database of the university and the hospital, but at least you/he/she had had the good taste to give a great deal a secondary importance to the thing in comparison to the human tragedy of the Whip.

For a few days people greeted me passing nearby me, but my indifference and the ostracism of physicians and interviewed relatives discouraged whoever.

In head twos weeks all still knew about me, but they considered only probably me an eccentricity of the scientific search of which the punishment was not worth to speak anymore.

Everything returned as it was before.

But me, in some way, I was changed. I felt inside of me a new push, lower case letter to the beginning, that few to few magnified and it became an obsession. I was a man. I felt me man, even if I didn't seem him/it. I was as that people that I had saved, as the wounded girl, that would have been able to be my daughter. Until then I had been anesthetized by my hostility towards my old human nature, rancoroso toward what in past you/he/she had betrayed me and too much in conflict with my mechanical monumentality. I accepted by circumstance my paternity: Daylight was a state of fact, and I was proud of it. I was also grandfather, fantastic thing also that. But as man thing other I was? Did I end there, in the descendants of mine old genetics, or did something stay me more? They were things which taken to think a lot.

For how much I constantly improved in my performances and in the acceptance of what I was, there were always some black days, in which these questions produced pure pain. Days when I would have liked to undo what the science you/he/she had put together miraculously. I was a man, even if without body; a man with his/her needs and his/her weakness. With the desire to be approved, for example, or to be considered interesting for that that I was inside or, more simply, normal. From how much a woman didn't look me in a certain way? That light emotion missed me that could feel once in the voice of a stranger that stopped me for an information; without second ends, certain, but recognizing, with that emotional trembling of his, with that pinch of timidity, my status of male potentiality. I don't allude to the sex. Also that missed me, naturally; but it was rather what was you around to make himself/herself/themselves feel for his/her absence. That sense of anticipation missed when you are together with the other, the appearance of a possible promise, the delicious sense of your brittleness and other people's; because the people story evil you/they can be done, but also well. Where was it, my good? In that days, in which all of my oppressive desire of tenderness fought for exploding and my good cynicism didn't prevail, I felt a big need to discharge me. And then I remembered to have a body to do him/it. I could not get tired as the biological beings but I could weaken my mind: in that moments I raced.

The first time that I did him/it I wanted only to get further me from New Sealon and from everything that that there was. I taken to walk along the road that left the city for the countries without a precise destination; but to walk enjoying me the nature was not enough, that day. I had had an attack of scorching and unexpected panic, to the laboratory: an undue intervention of Vladi on my hardware, a small inaccuracy of too much, and the brain had protested to his/her way. My body had started to wave everywhere rattling as an old coffeepot. Vladi had immediately understood and you/he/she was done pale; him I didn't want of it, but I didn't succeed in telling him him. It was too much hard. They wanted us you are technical to position me on the bunk and to allow Vladi to make up for to the error. I stopped gradually trembling and I taken back the control of me. I was exhausted.

Vladi was dismayed; I beat on his shoulder and I went out of the laboratory in hurry to hide the anger. The excuses of Vladi pursued me over the door.

I didn't have him with him, naturally, but with me, with that that I was. I got further me with the confused mind and the earth humor, avoiding the passer-bys the more possible. I casually took the road for the sea, only because it seemed the less frequented. Gone out of the city, I started to feel better me, the sense of prostration that followed the attack of panic had passed, by now; the anger stayed only. I began to race. At first to distract me, for that sense of self-defence that had taught me to hold occupied the mind in the difficult moments; then notaries that the motion also worked as I discharge, just as when I was a true human being. What pits psychological heritage of the past or a reality benefit I don't know him/it, but to put me to hard test made the most bearable things. I put me to side of the road, on the inerbito, and I started to give me to do of ugly; soon the limbs sabred the air hissing strong, the feet they lifted discreet sod. I reached such a speed to easily overcome the rare autos that crossed the wide road; I passed nearby them, often attracting the attention surprised of driver and passengers. A child opened wide the mouth, stretched out in his/her seat, grasping a biscuit semisciolto in the lifted manina; he greeted me laughing. I also greeted him/it I, accelerated then. The auto remained back while the sea, there before, meeting rushed me.

I left road and lawns for the sand, I taken to race on the waterline lifting dust clouds and tall spray: it was fantastic to have that power.

Someone was to laze around on the battigia, a solitary coppietta: I jumped her/it of quite a lot meters and ever concerned not sinking as. Hands and braccia collaborated and I jumped out of the hole with an enormous leap, without the walk.

That boys had remained without words.

I accelerated anchor, beyond the prudence, sideways skidding as a crazy person. I entered too much the water and I lifted a column of foam of ten meters; I covered me with droplets that shone to the sun of the late afternoon. I saw in distance that the beach ended up leaving space to the bluff. I came there shortly, feeling me as a truck driver that has been driving to his maximum for times: tired, even if without a crumb of sweat. I jumped on the first rock landing you with a satisfactory screeching; I jumped per second from the first one, from the second to the third one, and so street, trying not to slow down. I didn't race, I jumped.

The bluff began to make himself/herself/themselves more imposing; between a rock and the other, under of me, the sea did him capricious and insolent. Waves broke him at the base of the rocks, blustering dark.

The squirts got up tall, sometimes reaching me.

I continued my run, jumping from a point to the other, until not inclusive, late, that was taking advantage of my fortune. With the speed and the sticky fund of the rocks it was only matter of time, and in fact it happened: I slipped, losing the balance. I jumped in the wrong direction, toward the wrong rock, but I reacted well: I crouched me and I absorbed the impact with the four arts, I went off back then to the as a rubber band. I drew in the air a soft arc and to the appearance slow: in reality I was me that my receptive functions I had pushed at the most gathering so so many details of the surrounding zone that when I fell to the ground I exactly knew thing to do. I tilted me of side to change direction toward a precise destination. And there I committed the my according to error. I could not imagine that striking the scabrous surface with the feet tilted that would have surrendered: I produced so many pebbles and some moist powder. I leaned the hand to raise again me but it was too late. I came slipping and screeching at the end of the rock, and then in the void. I fell for seven or eight meters, then I bumped the rock of forehead, a great deal lower, and I fell in the water dipping me up to the basin. I remained for some second immovable property, fixture with the feet in the sand of the invisible fund.

«Iuuuuuuuu!» I howled, with the maximum one of the volume.

The cry bounced among the rocks and escaped away toward the sea.

You/he/she had been fantastic.

I was about ten minutes looking around me there. I felt me free, a different feeling. It had to be so that the wolves caracollandos were felt in the most lost heaths. Terrorizzante. Magnificent.

I returned on using the hands as scaling hooks. It was easy. I estranged me from the bluff galloping as a happy colt. The road cooperated I and I taken the direction for the return. It was all right, now, as I/you was freed me of a weight.

I increased the walk without risking too much.

I placed side by side at first a car of the police and the man to the steering wheel it didn't notice me; we made hundred tiled meters, then the police officer distractedly turned him and strabuzzò the eyes. I had to make him a beautiful effect: we traveled to about eighty kilometers the time and my legs they drew ample and precise falcades on the adjacent to lawn the road. I saw the guy that fixing always spoke in a low voice me to the radio; then I saw him/it relax himself/herself/themselves. I noticed his/her facial muscles to stretch him, even if of a nothing. You/he/she would not have been able to appreciate him/it any other, but my sight was assembled on every wrinkle of his, every pore and pelucchio.

The man deposed the radio and smiled at me. He/she knew who was, now. I made a sign with his hand, and that quietly responded me. I had of it enough: I accelerated to the great one, had a good time, observing from the nape the expression of the agent while I was sowing his/her inadequate vehicle. I snickered to my way thinking that the last thing that he/she saw of me, before I disappeared to the horizon, they were my steel chiappones.

# 9.

There was another habit that I had learned to appreciate. When I was less furious and I had some leisure time, I went to a spot set apart of the park, four benches to contour of a piazzetta with a fountain in perennial jet.

I had discovered by chance him, one day when I didn't bear out anymore the presence of the journalists the door of house; I was gone out and I had slipped in the park. You/they had followed me until there: they found me sat on a bench to contemplate the child from the arm amputated that it distributed water to the passerottis of passage.

For some they tried to approach me: it was gratifying to be there, immovable as only me I know how to do, listening to the questions first curious, then you surprise and finally disenchanted of that guys covered of television equipments.

Then I kept on returning us. There was almost never anybody and however who was it made him his/her facts.

Once I spent the whole day in the laboratory for of the tests. Deadly boredom. The evening they let me go and I almost reached the park of run: I had need to be for my account.

There was a person sat to a bench.

I drew near me with calm, not to upset her/it, but that didn't deign me of a look.

I sat far, to the opposite bench; the throw of the fountain separated us. I relaxed me and as of habit taken to look around me. My circular vision was nearly perfect, now; without effort I contemporarily observed in all the directions. I had also invented another exercise: I quickly modulated the gang of the electromagnetic frequencies that my eyes perceived, passing from the infrared ones to the radios so that and over, cyclically. In the brain it was formed me an unique image that summarized the whole ghost: the blackbird that peered at me from back a subject became a great deal more complex that for a normal human being, in a way that I would have found difficult to also explain to my doctors.

It was amusing.

«Good evening» it said a voice close to me.

Of surprise I was taken: the blackbird had absorbed my complete attention.

There was a girl to my side, you/he/she was moved by the bench in front of mine and is sat nearby hardly me.

Not I moved the head, forgetful of my good intention to turn me toward the interlocutor.

«Hi» I said me some annoyed.

«Then it is really her» it said the woman.

Quietly smiled. I scrutinized her with attention with the tones of the whole ghost. It didn't seem me to know her/it, but it didn't have the air of a snoop.

«You/he/she was seemed me to recognize her/it from the footstep» it added «but his/her voice some I cannot forget her/it.»

I still looked at her. You didn't fix me: as me, it held the head in all other direction. It was blind.

«My name is Threadbare» it said. «I wanted to thank her/it.»

Attended that I digested the thing. The voice that I felt, the dark glasses that covered some furrows around the eyes, recent wounds. the girl that The hads exchanged for my daughter in the business center.

«Certain» I answered, without tones. «How you/he/she has found me?»

You still smiled.

«I know a lot of things on her. It is enough famous.»

«Already» I did me.

«Thanks» it said her. «Really. There is perhaps a reason, dopotutto, for what has happened her. You/he/she has done down there a big good.»

I would normally have become infuriated. But with her I was not able. It had a condition similar to mine, imprisoned as it was of his/her own body, even if in reality it appeared solid as the rock. It pronounced his/her words as they were absolute truth. There were no spaces for my dissent and doesn't tell me way of replying.

«We see us, iron man» it surprisingly said.

It was not an offense. It was a simple verification. And it was also a strange regard: if we were still met there her you/he/she would not have seen me and I would have concerned her with my one hundred eyes.

It silently got up and it went with definite footstep, oscillating a thin white baton that first I had not noticed.

I remained for a certain time in loneliness, thinking about her. Strange girl. Then the whispers of the web became a call; additional functions had implemented me, lately: I was permanently connected, without need of subsidiary instruments. I could contemporarily sustain a telephone interview without sending sonorous to the outside of my body, to explore the net and to quietly chat with the neighbor of bench. To the beginning it was damnedly difficult: the mind you/he/she is done for reasoning in way seriale, one footstep at a time, in sequence. My brain was learning to bring before more mental operations in parallel.

Who looked for me? The communication asked for a contact audio-video: I sent an image of myself and I accepted the communication.

«Angel?» it said a voice interdict.

Never web-cam you/he/she had sent figure of more anxious interlocutor of mine, I knew him/it.

That voice didn't tell me nothing, however. When I translated the signals received in the image of the other one I started: the pale face of my smaller brother fixed me from the web.

«Dan» concluded, almost whispering.

I had not felt my brother for years, beforehand to become that that I was. You/he/she had never forgiven him to me, my survival: it refused to consider him relative of a car and it blamed me to subdue mine to a presence that had defined" an abomination." You/he/she had never told me him; you/he/she would not have been so hard when he/she anchors I was trapped in a sick body, neither you/he/she had ever had the intention to speak to me after the transplantation. I knew that you/he/she had quarreled with my daughter, respect to me, and that Daylight had lost the stirrups; when I asked her what you/they were said her traccheggiava, but a line of tension ploughed her the face and the answers they were few more monosyllabic.

It was amazing to see him/it. Something me it tightened him inside: I didn't remember the last time that I had spoken to him and I had not seen my nephews for a lot of time.

«Dan» I said stronger.

«Yes» it said him, timidly.

I was alarmed me.

«Something has happened? His/her children.»

Dan waved the hand.

«All normal» it did. «I wanted only to feel you.»

I stared at him/it with the greatest attention, exploring every centimeter of his/her face. It was nervous, certain, but there was also qualcos'altro. The emotion prevented me from understanding more.

«You are well?» resumptions. «I have felt some attack. It is terrible.»

«Dan» I said me; I liked to pronounce his/her name, I had not served him/it for a lot of time. «You are right, you/he/she has been horrendous.»

«You were there» it said. «Any. damage?»

Already. The cars are not hurt, they have damages. I mentally tightened the teeth that I didn't have.

«All to place» I answered. «I/you/they have reached done things there.»

Dan bent the eyes, as if that call the same costing great effort.

«I wanted only to feel you» it repeated. «Greet me Daylight and the boys.»

I was about to reciprocate the regard but the line he interrupted.

I remained there as stunned for quite a lot minutes.

# 10.

I returned home that was dark. Mine had to have already dined; I looked at the lights of the residence, the stay was illuminated and they was seen some shades stir over the curtains.

I entered house feeling me rather in guilt for the delay; Daylight had not called me, sign that however it was everything to place. When it felt at top speed me to the entry raced Teo me meeting.

«From the, it is some that it waits yourself!» trafelato exclaimed.

I greeted him/it disheveling his hair and I entered stay, with the strange hope of finding me Dan and family quietly sat on the couch. I had not recovered from the two strampalates conversations of the afternoon yet.

But the day was not ended yet.

There was no Dan to attend me, as instead I had hoped.

There was the mayor. I immediately recognized her: I had seen her on TV a lot of times. A forty year-old lady, of pleasant aspect but some in meat, with the fresh voice from twenty-year old and a crystalline laughter.

I am not lover of the politics, but I was interdicted when I saw her/it. Not how much him was her, however. The woman got up standing and quadrated me in an instant of difficulty, as if you/he/she didn't make her/it to contain only me in a look. But he immediately took back; you/he/she had gotten used to face difficult situations.

«Angel, imagines» it said.

My daughter watched me to make to understand me to behave well me. I handed her the hand and I tightened his from true gentleman. You perfectly seemed already to his/her ease.

«Pleased to know I verify her/it» I said me.

My voice was set on the warm tones and the woman it reacted as if it definitely had by now me classified as human.

«No» it did her. «I am me to be pleased. I counted to know for a long time already her to thank her/it than you/he/she has done to the Whip, but I didn't want to disturb her/it. I know that it didn't need other pressures. Certainly that it is an amazing man, her.»

It seemed a very frank type; it was then that it started to like me. I made her sign to take a seat and I also took a seat me me.

His/her children started to make some uproar and Daylight it excused him in exaggerated way.

«I also have some children me» it said the mayor shaking the hand.

The woman looked me fixed leaving half open a few the eyes. Scattered Pieguzzes were formed around her eyes.

«You leave that I/you/he/she tell her that I affirm him to reason view. I have visited his/her laboratories and I have talked to the technicians and the physicians that deal him with her. It has an unique mind.»

They were not my laboratories, obviously. I wondered me from how much time me same waiting, there in house; but the mayor didn't seem intenzionata to leave to join in conversation me.

«I wonder me. if she was prepared to also repeat his/her good job in another situation of emergency. It would be an enterprise put on to brush for her.»

The mayor had already filed the matter of the thanks thing of which I was her thankful.

I looked at Daylight to see he/she knew something; my daughter almost imperceptibly shook the shoulders, knowing that I would have noticed him even if now she was behind of me.

I didn't want to show me available, but I was curious.

«Of what he treats?» I asked.

The woman didn't wait for other; in his/her eyes there was a sudden lightning of urgency that the voice didn't reveal. From excellent political it slowly leaned the back against the couch, taking himself/herself/itself the whole time that held necessary to make greater impression.

«We don't live badly, doesn't he/she believe?» it started. «The times of the great globalization with its disasters are distant, by now. Before the global village there were rich countries and poor countries, with the globalization all became poor: the triumph of the economic entropy.»

I recognized him/it: it was his/her preferred strong point, you/he/she had ridden him to the elections, certain expressing himself/herself/itself in more comprehensible way to benefit of everybody.

By now you/he/she had departed, I patiently attended that he discharged.

«There were not enough resources for all» it continued. «Not to have acceptable conditions of life. A rich country exploits that poor up to a certain point, but a poor country sucks from another poor man up to the last droplet. This way they increased the international conflicts and the struggle for the primary resources. When the oil started to be scarce the things they worsened. The world was in unstable balance on the disaster. But the miracle happened. Or, if we want, the scandal.»

«The reactor Williamson» I said, hoping to conclude the discourse.

«Yes. Had they been having him for many years, do you know?» it said the mayor arousing enthusiasm himself/herself/itself, not without an evident note of bitterness. «A simple but effective technology. Combustible cheap, ecological. Effortless to build. Based on a cold fusion that all were given a big from do to disown since the theoretical bases.»

But it worked. I remembered well when they announced the experimentation of the reactor: a wave of enthusiasm pervaded the planet. When however he/she was known that the project had slept in a drawer for years, that you/he/she had valiantly been opposed by the political system and that many knew, the enthusiasm turned him into rebellion. You came a step away from the civil war; it seemed evident to everybody that the poster of the hydrocarbons had pushed for the insabbiamento with money and threats.

Luckily that happened that was only of a more step under in comparison to the civil war: the system was broken up alone. Anybody state would have more approved than to follow the political consumistiches and the deceitful economies of the most influential countries, those for which the globalization meant to conform the whole planet to his/her own rhythms and values, in beard to the I degrade environmental and to the million of poor men and suffering that had lived then with few resources until. That same paupers that it was worthwhile, for some, to maintain such, and that they were million. Million that complained revenge. As often happens in the history, that loves the extreme, the reaction to the failure of an exaggerated globalization was exaggerated in turn: in one brief timecourse relatively the nations themselves collassarono. Central power dissolved him, the most important organism for the management of the public thing became the city. Not more is, only city. Two things had encouraged this trial: the unbearable impoverishment of the local natural resources to work of foreign busybodies and the practical aspects of the same reactor Williamson. The researchers had discovered that the output of the reactor decreased to increase some dimensions: so many small reactors were better than few great. Because then to produce energy in a solo point and then to also disperse a part of it to distribute her/it? The cost of the small reactors was decidedly contained. The production of electric energy was decentralized; every city had its reactor, every city had a source of proper energy that handled all of its needs: communications, industries, transports.

They returned in top the Poleises, the city-is of Greek fret memory. In ancient Greece you/they had been born for the difficulty of a territory that prevented easy contacts; in the modern world they were born because these contacts had arrived to be so unrestrained and massificanti, so stamped to the plagiarism by the old and tyrannical economy sciupona, that every individuality was disparaged from there.

But a cultural isolation didn't happen. Rather. He/she thought of us the web: the net served by now for everything and was so diffused that to try to delimit its confinements would have been unthinkable. Thanks to it we kept on living in the world, only that had learned to reason more some with our head.

The mayor got excited on the couch. My immobility was putting her/it a few to uneasiness.

«Today we have our reactor» it said the woman with pride. «The things are all right. And we have stopped ransacking our planet.»

It was enough right; thanks to the reactor Williamson the distances were not important. There were a lot of mines on the Moon and on Mars, automated systems they handled the extraction of the materials and numerous freighters they incessantly crossed the rout Earth-moon and Earth-Mars in less than a week. Never as then to travel in the space you/he/she had been so economic and sure. They were not anymore by now the nations but the single cities to organize consignments and mining excavations.

«Unfortunately» it said the mayor «the reactor needs periodic maintenance. The intermediary chemical reactions, to the inside, they are deadly for his/her structures and the wrap in league of iridium you/he/she must periodically have replaced. Does the iridium have two particularities, do you know? It is rare on the Earth, and it is the only metal to have the resistance to the enough corrosion to make to work the reactor.»

I also knew him/it me. It was above all for this that had been a big resumption of the trips in the space. You knew that the iridium was abundant in a lot of fallen meteorites on the Earth; it was the great presence of iridium in a layer deposited ago him sessantacinque million of years, that had pushed the scientists to conclude that the disappearance of the dinosaurs was due to a grandiose meteoric impact happened in that epoch. I am not particularly cultured, but Teo has fixed on the dinosaurs and in his/her books the matter you/he/she is described with great trivial detail.

However pits, if the Earth was watered of iridium by the space, because not also other celestial bodies? So much more than the most greater part of the fallen meteors on the Earth was destroyed entering atmosphere; but there were worlds without atmosphere or with attenuate atmosphere where the meteorites could be preserved intact up to the impact. The Moon had been studied for before, but it was small and a lot of meteorites suffered the terrestrial attraction rather than that, weak, of the same Moon. Therefore we went looking for iridium on Mars, the more world similar to the Earth. It was an appropriate choice and said his/her fruits.

Did every terrestrial city boast the possession of a piece of ground Martian, done enact by the World Assembly of the Mayors; our territory (or martitorio?) it was enough wide and it boasted numerous impact craters: it was there that we found big part of the iridium that we used for the reactor.

The mayor fixed me for a moment.

«From the mines Martian we have always picked up more iridium than it served us some. Up to today» concluded.

I hesitated, then definite to give her satisfaction.

«Thing has happened?» I kindly asked.

The mayor tightened him in the shoulders.

«We don't know him/it. Our men are up there. They don't communicate with us anymore, their reserves of air won't last to the endless one. I/you/they are worried for them. And also in the city: the moment of manutenere the reactor has come and we doesn't have enough iridium to do him/it.»

«I believed we had some escorts» I objected.

«We had her» it said the woman, slowly, with a veil of apprehension. «Until yesterday the same terrorists of the Whip you/they have not made to shine all of our stores.»

I surrendered me to a light low whistle. The reactionary globalistis, the disagreeable residue of a past epoch, had struck the heart of the city: without the reactor Williamson we could not live, the mayor would be due to go around with the hat to hand imploring the administrations of other cities for a loan of iridium difficult to get, or to conditions of purchase from I strangle.

It didn't surprise me that our mayor appeared worried for the situation. What I didn't understand was because it told him/it me.

«We need help» it still said. «It serves us someone who goes to give up there a glance and hurries him/it, before our boys remain without air. We say. someone in degree to torch the uneasiness of to trip from the Mars Earth to time of record, without need of great preparation and without making use standard of shuttle.»

If I/you had been able I would have remained to open mouth. Daylight did him/it. His/her children that, playing around there, they owed to have grabbed something, they stopped chasing each other himself/herself/themselves and they jumped for the joy.

«His/her grandfather goes to the space!» they howled.

The mayor fixed me. You/he/she had been very clear, it waited only for one comment of mine.

It was a person a lot of main point, our mayor; in a world in which the cities were the widest political body, in the hands of the first citizen prestige and enormous powers were assembled. I had to clearly answer and with respect.

I leaned out me toward the woman. I lifted a hand with solemn slowness. I regulated the voice with the prouddest and deep tone of which I was able.

«With the cabbage» I said.

My daughter held back the breath.

The mayor didn't beat eyelash.

«Dad!» Daylight exclaimed.

"Angel" I corrected inside of me.

«I have a family to which to mind» I observed flatly.

«Today the spatial trips are very sure» it said the mayor with caution.

It delayed the word sure of a pair of tenth of according to. I had unconsciously measured the time intervened among every word of the sentence up to the fourth decimal figure and the last two they a lilt that would practically have been constant otherwise. I mark that the woman didn't believe big that to how much I dictate.

«Unfff» I did me. «Two centuries ago the missions had around a probability on sixteen to fail. Last century. one on twenty-five. Today we are to one on seventy. Acceptable. But he is speaking of tested missions and well you study, not of an attempt mended what proposes me.»

«Not so mended» it objected the mayor.

You/he/she was discussing with me without any authoritarian tone; I knew that instead it was able impuntarsi: the money that university spent for the project that concerned me was in good part public. I was what his/her. This did me her to appreciate even more.

«Its laboratory is at work already» it added smiling as soon as.

Excellent. The woman had already organized all, you/he/she had come from me as last thing.

I imagined Vladi and Kurt: they had to be enthusiastic of this adventure as little boys.

«Besides, here is a copy of the project that concerns her/it.»

It handed me a small orange cartellina. I opened him waiting me for diagrams and sketches, calculations and statistic extrapolations.

For a while I had developed the fast reading: I flowed the five pages written dense sharp pains in few instants and I closed again the papers.

I mentally assigned another stings to the mayor.

It was not a project, it was an insurance to benefit of Daylight and the boys if the things had gone badly me. My daughter would have had a good annuity and the education of the boys you/he/she would have been insured to expenses of the city. There was the zampino of doctor Berliz in that document.

Daylight fixed me uncertain, without knowing whether to encourage to go me or to hold him hold its dad.

«It will is necessary to guarantee a certain reserve to the whole operation» it said the mayor, as if I/you had already accepted. «If people knew about the thing there would be a lot of worry. You imagine a life without the reactor Williamson.»

I didn't imagine at all him, especially for me: my body worked thanks to a minuscule Williamson, if it missed the iridium for the city it also missed for me.

«It is a good project» I commented. «I will go.»

Daylight shelled the eyes but it didn't say anything. His/her children howled of emotion.

The mayor openly smiled, now, but he left that a fleeting wriggle of apprehension crossed her the face for an instant: you/he/she was worried indeed. If I read well his/her expression, and I read her/it with all the tones of the ghost, you/he/she was not waited for to have to whether to do with a real human being coming from me. Now it felt to send to I him/it a man to everything round; its fears made me feel such, and God knows if I didn't feel the need of it.

It is so that the things are: when a woman tells us men to do something of very disagreeable using the correct way, we are well pleased to obey. As true idiots.

# 11.

Vladi and Kurt had almost triumphally welcomed when I had reached the laboratory. They were eccitatissimi. They made me a general check-up, but very deepened.

«It will owe andar on light» Vladi told me.

He/she quickly spoke.

«It would be to say?» I asked.

«Almost without body» it said Kurt rehandling something to my back.

This was me new.

«As it would be?»

The thing shook me a tantino.

«The only two forms propelled you proper and already available they are on the orbital station intercittadina. The employees use them to the maintenance of the external surface of the station. Activity extraveicolare, understands? Reactors are small Williamson, every it is suitable to push the mass of a man for few G. Dobbiamo to reduce its weight because the motor can bring her/it to the accelerations that serve.»

«You have said that they are two» I observed.

«Yes» it said Kurt. «It will use them both. But it will have to go himself/herself/themselves behind also a reserve of oxygen and food stuff for his/her brain. You/he/she can give him that want us quite a lot time to find our astronauts. Through web we are able of monitorare all the systems of their vehicle: they perfectly work. There is no consumption of oxygen to the inside, neither there has been in the last hours. Or I am inside, dead, or they are out of some part.»

«Understands» I said. «In that it almost consists that? I want to say. The wills also have to move me, down there.»

«Be'.» it mentioned Vladi burdens embarrassed. «The doctor Of the you/he/she has had to improvise. Four very light arts, strong spherical body, few more than a braincase.»

It showed me the components: they were on a table against the opposite wall. Every arm had double articulation: elbow and wrist, could say. But the similarity with the human braccias ended there. Even the my paradoxical iron corpaccio seemed that of a man, if compared with that stuff.

«A fottuto spider» I observed flatly.

The boys were cleared the voice to uneasiness.

«Gravity is of little superior to a bystander of that terrestrial, down there» it said comprehensive Vladi. «It doesn't serve a strong body.»

«I will have to enter there inside.»

I alluded to the steel box that was at once head and trunk of my future body. It seemed me to be next to an attack of claustrophobia, but Kurt didn't allow me to think.

«It will be easy» it said, attracting my attention. «Its brain is already wired.»

This distracted me mine despite.

«Yes» it said Kurt. «It has a complete interface with the systems elettromeccanici. You treats only. ugh. to connect well the cables of the new hardware to the. general terminal block.»

Kurt snickered, making to understand me that the things were a pochino more complicated than this way.

It was the first time that Kurt spoke of me to so mechanistic way. Instead of bothering me the thing it reassured me.

«It will maintain his/her sensors» it said Vladi.

Takings to fumble behind of me: you/he/she was doing me something on the back, but I didn't succeed in understanding what. Its hands raced rapidses, I felt the vibrations that were propagated up to my sensitive hands.

«The extremity of those new braccia has five fingers radially prepared around the palm; it will have tactile feelings but any thermal perception. The visual sensors are the same. Any conventional hearing, only so that electromagnetic. It will directly have a good transmitting station on board, it will be to the place of his/her voice in the field of the audible one. The brain will float in a dense physiological solution with nourishing and oxygen. The acceleration won't be a problem.»

«Doctor Berliz would have liked to speak to her, but it is not in the city» Kurt joined in conversation.

«I will be well» I affirmed, above all to convince myself. Everything went too much fast.

«I now have to extinguish her/it for some» it said Vladi.

«You owe cos.?» I started.

The world became dark of a line and I sank in the irresponsibility.

# 12.

It was everything absurd. For first thing, I was not to earth, but at the same time I was not standing; I started to look around me without moving the head.

I saw the floor: a metallic grille suspended on a dark fund to around a meter from my eyes. And I felt me the feet! It was unbelievable, but I had the perception of a throw of air on my feet, even if I would not have known how to say very more.

The world was I deprive of sounds. The circular vision attacked me to the sudden one: I saw the walls, shiny and clean, and four figures in spatial overall without helmet next to me. One of their were near: its braccias were partially brims, while its hands disappeared under my visual horizon.

I understood that you/he/she was doing me something; to my body, I intend. I saw the lips of the people that stirred but I could not understand anything.

We surely found us in a shuttle of some type, perhaps in an area freighter, and obviously endowed with inside atmosphere. I went on the web and I looked for the extreme for a transport of the kind; a flight toward the orbital station was recorded in a database of the city administration, but you/he/she was not specified big that. All the external transmissions to the shuttle, also supporting himself/herself/itself to the web, they were criptate. I had to interact in direct way. Scansionai that that I saw to all the frequencies, but with a narrow window, peering at a small portion of the ghost to the time: the infrared ones said that the environment was not heated, but it was not even cold. The breaths of the astronauts produced small puffs of aqueous vapor.

In the field of the radio waves the shuttle was not dark: I saw the irradiation of the waves, discontinuous but present, that weakly illuminated the walls and it produced everywhere slim reflections. I could easily distinguish who spoke: a diffused luminescence was propagated by its transmitter every time that the lips stirred. Even if that men could directly communicate to voice, the transmitter of the overall was always active to do yes that the ship could record every event that happened on board; the data were added to the diagrams of respiraton, pulsation, perspiration, physiological rhythms and state of the nervous system of each. Privacy doesn't exist in the space. The ship rebroadcasted criptando to earth the signal, but I directly received from the overall. I tightened more and more the gang to tall frequency, overlapping you the ghost of the visible one, until the movements of the lips they were perfectly in synchronous with the radioondes that I observed. I had individualized the frequency of the transmissions.

«Hi» I said, to that same frequency.

«Ted?» churches someone.

The four astronauts looked him: you/they had heard the voice but none of them had spoken. Ted was the pilot and was for his/her facts in the cockpit.

«Angel» I corrected.

The astronaut that was me nearer visibly jolted; for a moment my world started. In an instant of slanting perception I saw that the man held my body in hand, the limbs almost dangled me until to earth.

«Ehm. The ams Rexel. gentleman.» it said the hand, to which The wases practically in neck.

Rather embarrassing.

«To like to know her/it Rexel. Where devil am I/you/they?»

«On board of the shuttle for the orbital station. Well wakened, gentleman.»

I was decidedly in a vain freighter, I saw above of me the line of connection of the great external hatches; the central space of the vehicle was also devoted to the transport of people: there was a line of seats, raw and uncomfortable, provided of safety belts and it leans back. They were at least an about ten.

«You/he/she can put down me, if he/she believes. Close to her there is a free place» I said.

«Ehm. The have tried, gentleman. But the safety belt doesn't adapt him for. The wants to say. to.»

«An iron ball» concluded.

Rexel became of an almost amusing vermilion red.

«You don't worry him» I added. «I don't pick up me her. You/he/she should see my form when I operate on the Earth.»

«Yes gentleman.»

«The station misses a lot it?»

«Few minutes.»

Rexel was damnedly young and damnedly to uneasiness. Possession this coso in hand that was a person had to be too much for one that had from not too long dismesso the Monopolies. Looking well at them. they were all young people, that boys; the trips in the space didn't ask for extreme specializations anymore, almost whoever was able to get by with to minimum of preparation.

«Mr.?» it said another of them looking at the sphere bracciuta that I was me.

«Uhm» I did.

«Him the face to see.»

«As it would be? To whom?»

«To anything has happened down there. Bring them home.»

«You seem sure that is still you live.»

The boy inhaled, as if the worse perspective had contemplated now only her.

«We are him/it» it said Rexel. «With them there is Robin the best astronaut that we know. It has a great experience.»

I understood them. On Mars their companions had remained there; could happen to whoever it made that work. They had to think that the things would have been resolved.

«Here Ted, boys» the pilot joined in conversation. «Time of arrival thirty second. I fear we will have to wait in tail: the berths are all full ones and the portholes of service they are busy from manutentori in transit.»

Rexel anticipated of an instant my questions.

«You/they are widening the orbital station» it said. «Too shuttles and few accesses. In this period to climb on board it is an enterprise. The other day we have had to also wait for twenty minutes for the berths in cable.»

«What they would be.» The said.

«They send us a steel cable and we hook him/it to us to a side of the shuttle. Then, vehicular extra activity. We fix there to the cable with a moschettone and we reach the hatches of service. We enter from there.»

«We cannot wait. The situation on Mars can be serious» I affirmed.

I didn't have any intention to waste precious minutes.

One of the astronauts looked me with a pinch of obstacle.

«Unfortunately the station is not alone our» it said. «Even if immediately gives us the cable we cannot enter before the employees to the construction have cleared away the field.»

«A fried cabbage» I exclaimed.

Considering that those had called me gentleman they had to attribute me a certain authority, and I would have used her. Someone of the young fellow opened wide the eyes.

«It feels me, Ted?» I added.

The pilot owed to have followed our conversations because you/he/she had understood very well who he turned him.

«Mr.?»

«He/she calls the tallest in degree of ours on the station. What I/you/he/she make me come to take in the department of service in five minutes.»

«Understands.»

«Boys, insert you the helmets and we open the portholes of load. We see this neighbor station.»

«Sissignore» it said the more astronaut away from me.

They inserted the whole helmet, then someone you have to operate the commands because the air quickly flowed out with a damped hiss. The hatches above their heads and my capoccione started to open. It was a slow and enervating thing; the stars gradually appeared in the sky, bright and immovable. Only when the steel plates reached end run the station it became visible: the superior part of the construction capolinava above the hull of the shuttle. It was apparently a disjointed heap of containers of all the forms and dimensions, I interconnected by narrow circular channels semirigidi. A side portion seemed monca: it projected in the space long metallic gun carriage that sparkled with white-blue light. That had to be the yard.

The Earth was not seen, it had to be correct from the opposite side of the shuttle.

«Ted» I called. «Wheel some the ship. I want to see the whole station, here, from the hold of load.»

«Immediately, gentleman» it said the pilot.

Some instant after I had the vision of the station that apparently he lifted together with the stars, until it brought him above our heads. The shuttle jammed in position.

We were not near: I observed the docks of berth filled of shuttles similar to mine and the zone of service with the wide open enormous portholes. There was there a maddish bustle of men and a halves; all stirred with an infuriating slowness. I knew that the safety protocols on the station were enough rigid.

«He/she wants to enter from that entry, gentleman?» Rexel asked me. It alluded to the uproar in front of us.

«If it is the only possible.» The answereds.

«There are no berths in cable, there nearby. We will have to stop us from another part and to make a stroll of different minutes.»

«I have a best idea» I said. «Let's approach us how much we are able. Rexel, practice sport?»

«Be', natural.» he/she answered, burdens amazed.

«Baseball. As if as pitcher gets by?»

The boy had understood.

«Thing? Mr., it doesn't seem me to great it conceives. We will have to approach us of quite a lot, more than the allowed by the rule. Besides she would beat a beautiful blow to the arrival, gentleman and Ted he would take a lecture from the commander of the station.»

«And an encomium from our mayor. If it feels her/it, Ted?» I asked.

«Eccome» it said the pilot.

«Let's do him/it» I ordered.

I immediately perceived a light acceleration, then nient'altro. Ted was a laconic type, however he/she didn't sleep. The station was slowly magnified but in appreciable way. We moved there to constant speed. Rexel got up and been said a light push with the feet: we approached us to the external wall of the shuttle, Rexel it was grabbed with the left arm to the nearest paratia easily holding me in hand with the right.

«Ted, warn when you have reached the point limit» it said Rexel.

The station was great, now. Distavamo no more than fifty meters from the enormous opening; many workers in spatial overall turned him verse of us making us frightened signs. I felt Ted, it had to be him, that lowly snickered: if you/he/she was enjoying her/it. The shuttle stopped him with sweetness. We were immovable.

«Terminal» it said Ted. «Ever felt so many insults by radio in my life.»

The bridge of command had to be full of people shaken for the manoeuvre of the pilot. I almost felt me proud of him.

Rexel slowly inhaled, taking the aim. It pushed away me with a fluid and continuous gesture, of whom knows to manage the weights in absence of gravity. It didn't launch me strong; unintentionally a light rotation had also engraved me, but it didn't care: my sight was to circulate however and I didn't take the risk to have fits of dizziness.

«Be', boys, have been a pleasure» I greeted.

Everybody responded together and they didn't make me understand a word. I imagine they were sentences of leave. I continued in silence.

For the first time I had the vision of the Earth, enormous and bright, that rose behind the shuttle: even in my best expectations I had foreseen the impression that I tried. Who works in the space it is fortunate indeed.

I had to make an aware effort to assemble me on that that it happened me: I was approaching me to the station in the wrong direction. The throwing of Rexel had not been so precise, after all. According to my perspective I would have gone to beat on the external plates of the station to around half meter from the opening. I could perhaps do something to make up for; if I/you had used my legs I would have been able to stretch me so that to grab a whatever prominence on the steel surfaces. I tried to check the limbs, as I had always done with the my old corpaccio. Curse. My pylon zampucces mentioned an out movement, then they remained to dangle as the tentacles of a jellyfish.

"Oh no" I thought. I would have had to learn to walk again. I tried to make some practice before the impact. I combined few and badly.

Then I became me account that I had underestimated Rexel. Between station and shuttle it owed us to be a least difference of speed, because to few second from the impact it was evident that I would comfortably have entered the body semioscuro of the vain one of service.

# 13.

«What devil it is' st'affare?» it told a worker silvery overall.

It held me in hand scrutinizing me from all the sides. You/he/she was talking to a companion and it slightly shook me. My legs hung in useless way.

I had succeeded in drawing the frequencies of transmission of the station in the same way of first: a rapids scanning in the ghost radio.

«I don't recognize the piece» it said the companion studying me with indifference.

For an instant temetti that would have inserted after all me in some box to the store: I saw shelves on full shelves of mechanical components and a well equipped shop for the workmanship of the steel.

I had entered some second first without nobody acknowledged nothing, I had given a sonorous capocciata on a wall and I had bounced here and there. But I was inside.

Another worker he was quickly approaching; it had a minuscule backpack propulsivo, of those that disappear in the overall. I didn't believe that they gave a similar speed. The new arrival had a shining white overall, on the breast it made beautiful show of itself the flag of our city.

«Boys, that stuff is mine» it said.

The stuff to which referred I was me. The man that held me in hand handed me to him with satisfaction: a piece that he is not known where you/he/she has to be you/he/she is always a puzzle of which you/he/she can be done to less.

«Coop more careful, another time, lieutenant» it said the worker. «You/he/she could end in the furnace.»

I was not an expert of the station, but the furnace I knew what it was: some worker had the vice to free himself/herself/themselves of casting I pour him/it the Earth because the atmosphere destroyed him/it. It was a practice convict from the press of all the cities, but it saved the job of the disposal.

«Already» it said my new carrier «I would not be me expected to find here it.»

This last wisecrack was certain for me, a delicate criticism of which I heard the whole irony. I cared the correct one: to me it interested to do soon, if someone preferred to follow the official roads. beh, could go to make himself/herself/themselves to colonscopia.

The man grabbed well me, then you/he/she made a sign of regard to the workers and you/he/she departed to rocket.

It was an instructive even if brief small trip, finished in perfect silence. The man didn't seem intenzionato to chat and I was incuriosito from the environment that you/he/she surrounded me; nevertheless lost soon interest to the monotonous sequence of stores and laboratories and I devoted me to the use of my legs. They were all and four free, so I could make the tests that I wanted. I made a rapids combination of the stimuli that was able to produce and that, I believed, you/they would have been able to create a movement. I started to despair, when my right anterior limb (as what I felt anterior right, my body had a perfect radial symmetry) quickly stirred and it kicked to everything field sinking in the fabric sovrapuberale of the overall of the lieutenant. The man didn't result damaged of it, since the overall was more strong, but however certain if it didn't wait for him: it slightly folded up him in before and you have to compensate downward the light skidding.

«Sorry» I said. «Test of deambulazione.»

«Let's show up us» that responded. «But it is better to wait for making four chatters.»

It was right: on the frequencies common of the station we would have been listened by everybody, better maintaining a certain reserve on my nature and of my mission. There had been after all the destruction of the reserves of iridium on the Earth and who knows what on Mars.

We flew in a corridor that he was gradually reducing of diameter; when we reached the door it was wide less than two meters. We entered a place of decompression and my companion, once concluded the procedure, you/he/she could get away the helmet of the overall with evident satisfaction.

I was satisfied also me: I had made some test and the gambucces they started to collaborate.

We moved there of some about ten meters estranging us from the central body of the orbital station, toward a zone devoted to the lodgings of the personnel; we jumped inside the elastic burrows making taking on you seize him that they stuck out from the walls every three meters. For the truth I almost exclusively confined me to bounce, rotating under the weak pushes of the astronaut. We finally reached destination, a spherical stanzuccia of three meters around of diameter, an a little raised again in comparison to the median plan of the station. It was small, but the sight was magnificent: there was a big window that could rotate on the whole external surface showing the details of the great manufactured article suspended above the Earth. And, over that, there was the sky. The man directed the window toward the Moon: the pale light of the star dyed the insides of a waxen atmosphere. To that sight I became distracted me how much it was enough because the sudden light that illuminated the room took me of surprise; it was in the field of the radios so that and it sprang from the right hand of the guy that was nearby me. I easily individualized the used frequency.

«. etto if it feels me» it said his/her voice.

«I feel her» I confirmed.

The man made me a sign with the head.

«Perfect. This is the frequency with which it will communicate from now on. It is that that they use our boys on Mars and it is that of his/her laboratory on the Earth.»

«My laboratory?» I said me.

«Hi Angel. I hope that you are well» it told a voice that not stentai to recognize: it was doctor Berliz.

My channel web, until then silent, you/he/she was automatically activated to the call of Berliz; I saw to the right aloft the doctor in a quadratino, overlapped to my normal visual field.

«Hi doctor» I said some amazed. «You as if it passes her/it?»

Berliz never responded to questions of the kind.

«They are here to the laboratory to be of you assistance. technique, says. There are within shouting distance all those that you know, in the case I needed something according to their competences. We will do some extraordinary.»

«Fantastic» I said me.

While I was talking to Berliz I noticed that my mysterious companion was opening a locker in the wall; there was a some type of device, I saw the flashing lucettes that projected minuscule cones against the window.

«You will ask yourself because you are instead of already riding your propellers there» the doctor started.

Mentally smiles.

«I have not had a lot of time to ask me questions, from when I wake up on the shuttle» I beat.

The events it was true you/they had involved me without giving me the time to take breath for an instant. Berliz knitted the eyebrows.

«Wakened up? Do you want to say that you have been irresponsible up to a little while ago?»

«Already» I did me. «A beautiful sleep.»

I saw that the thing didn't return him; the man seemed to lowly talk to somebody else, then you/he/she returned to address verse of me.

«You are for receiving something there: the data that will serve you to go on to the mission.»

You/he/she had already liquidated the matter of my long sleep. It was not from him.

«You could send me them on the web» I said me.

Also this thing not the sconfinferavas. It twisted the mouth in a funny grimace.

«Too information» he/she slowly answered. «It is certain details they are available only where you find yourself.»

«Be'.» it was to lieutenant. «I am ready.»

I looked at him/it: it held an object in hand.

«You regret to tighten the visual field? It looks in before» it suggested Berliz. «We owe. to open you.»

«Ugh. of accord» The said.

They wanted to insert me inside something without I assisted. Typical of Berliz: it had the fixed one that I/you was disturbed from my mechanical hardware.

I observed only the window in front of me, but I widened the electromagnetic ghost of my sight; the object in the hands of the astronaut was small and you/he/she had been inserted then in an active electronic device until: therefore it was still warm, from the reflex on the glass I saw the infrared ones that it sent forth. I focused me on the low frequencies and it appeared me before a writing in negative, the component's name; you/he/she had to have made of a substance that he/she was colder after all of the body. Read. That bargain was a storage device from an exabyte. Inside of me I had to have a compatible reader.

The schedina disappeared in my body. Almost immediately notaries a change in my configuration web: there was a new virtual site, assistant to those that I had inserted as preferred. I opened him with the same interface web, but it was evident that information didn't originate from the net: it was all resident stuff in my tummy.

«Received» I said.

Berliz fixed me expressionless. Says a glance so much for curiosity: gives on the rout and speed for the trip Earth-Mars, the technical characteristics of the vehicles that I would have piloted, planimetria and accurate altimetria of the whole surface Martian, human installations on the planet, location of the mines, curriculum vitae of the personnel of turn and relative charges, behavioral analysis of all the astronauts of our city and them up-to-date physical conditions. There was a tide of absurd information that you/they would never have served me. I allowed to lose to the moment.

«We have to go» it said the lieutenant. «They will be already ready with the propeller. We are at the end of the turn of watch and they are about to climb on our men.»

I didn't understand of what he/she spoke. A rapids glance to my exabyte and I learned that the station was substantially to military management; even if it was free zone, all the departments took some precautions to avoid whatever kind of problem. Every private zone was piantonata from the occupants; the common areas or to scientific vocation you/they were guarded instead purely by the soldiers of the various cities according to rotation turns.

The lieutenant opened the door with decision and conducted me, with the usual system of pushes, in a different direction from that of arrival; we crossed a big number of desert corridors.

Once we met only an officer of another city; the lieutenant greeted hard-working, the other one reciprocated ignoring me: I was only a palletta of metal that wandered skipping about against the walls; the officer you have to think that our lieutenant still had the spirit of the little boy to toy in this gravity way zero. I tried to make a wisecrack, but my companion seemed refractory to whatever form of humor.

I welcomed with relief the arrival to destination: it was the wing in construction of the orbital station. We were to the extremity that sank in the obscurity of the deep space, inside the last useful place to keep on breathing without the aid of the overall.

The lieutenant wore the helmet and depressurizzò.

«This cell is portable, you/he/she can be hooked form of the station to anybody else» he/she explained. «It serves for avoiding to make a lot of road going out of the usual portholes. Of fact, it belongs to the yard and you/he/she is moved with him. It is for the solos employed to the yard. Today it is for us.»

I didn't see soul long live around, but there were everywhere perhaps videocamere of overseeing. Behind of they there was now our soldiers, evidently. The lieutenant went out to the open one and grabbed me for a leg with abrupt movement; if I/you had ever met him wearing my old body, I preset me to make him the same treatment. I didn't try some physical bother, obviously, but I started to feel me nervous and susceptible: I was about to embark me in a trip of million of kilometers in solitary and I started to try some restlessness.

The lieutenant brought me different more meters in there while I tried to gather me in that metallic cobweb, that soon another series of habitable forms of the station would be become.

Without realizing of it we were ended in the cage: we were almost entirely inside a structure dam, realized in flexible steel nets. There were two other people, with us; they briskly worked in spatial overall, edged by cassettes for the utensils magnetized in support on the metallic superstructures. And here there my transport: two forms propelled you in fall, every to four nozzles, radially prepared to his/her own central body. The forms were sfalsati, so that the eight throws didn't overlap prospetticamente. Between a form and the other, a hold cylindrical wedge of reserves of oxygen and special food stuff.

I automatically resorted to the exabyte and I found the three-dimensional model of the vehicle: it was impromptu, but well thought. There was an issue of calculations concernenti the abilities of push and the simulations of the principal manoeuvres. Then I also found something on me: I observed a video that showed the anterior part, apparently cut and concave, which drew near outside the field a shiny sferetta coming from. My capoccio drew near to the vehicle and entered the hole to me devoted with a small clang; it followed something that I hardly recognized: it was a willing attempt of the planners to show as I would have felt the vehicle. There was there the void of the space before, in low a dash of download in progression overlapped to the external vision. Then the usual interface style web appeared to more windows with a thin network of coordinates.

Were the commands simple virtual buttons; the pages were quite a lot: diagnostic, does see, does change, date, guide, rout, on-line web, angel. angel? Apart that my name was written in minuscule (appropriate, considering that I was minuscule), that cabbage was us on me, there inside?

I was suddenly distracted by a real clang. I had been so assembled on the simulation that the lieutenant had just connected me to the vehicle without I realized me of it.

I allowed to lose the database and I looked around me with curiosity: my four braccias had remained out of the lodging, thing that didn't appear in the simulation, and the most pleasant surprise was that I could partially rotate my body so that to address my circular vision in all the possible directions.

It began the download as I expected me. It lasted a few minutes, in reality, but the displays and the windows exactly appeared as described in the exabyte. Only that, instead of being prepared on a plan, as you/he/she would have been for a simple human being, you/they were projected on the inside surface of a sphere whose center was me. Or who had realized the simulation it didn't exactly know my Royal ability, or you/they had worked to the saving.

The interface was notable; inclusive that the data that it was able to introduce originated from the exabyte however.

The massive structure of stored information it was dreadful: moving my visual field, a minuscule crossroad stirred with every time and it that it touched a star it gave me the relative data with particular to me incomprehensible. I turned me how much I was able from that position and I framed the Moon, some at random. My goodness! When the crossroad touched something. to peak, to crater, drafts also element of the lunar surface, the system told me everything that that he/she knew.

Since I was in slow movement together with the station orbitante, the window him refreshava continuously confusing me the ideas, already enough confused for loro account.

Then I understood. I disabled the crossroad and the window you date him closed alone.

«Everything well, Angel?» it said doctor Berliz.

I felt him/it strong and clear.

«I would say of yes. I am alone disoriented.»

«You succeed in moving the legs?»

Strange question. To that the legs would have served me, closed there inside? I shook my tentacolinis, that obeyed with thoroughness but without giving me a perception of strength.

«Everything is all right» I reassured him/it.

«Test some footstep, Angel, tell me as you find yourself.»

I had just done him, the apprehension of the physician was almost ridiculous.

«Everything is all right» I confirmed.

«Lieutenant.?» he/she asked doctor Berliz.

«Phase of insertion completed» it said algid the astronaut. «I confirm functionality to the one hundred percent. Vehicle and ready systems.»

«Among how much.?»

«The window of throwing has just opened» it hastily said the lieutenant. «We have an useful interval of three minutes, then the discretion of the operation will be compromised.»

They owed to have hidden the propellers in the zone less frequented of the station and chosen the moment of my departure so that the probability that you/they noticed me it was least.

«Angel.» he/she called Berliz. «It starts the diagnostic one.»

There was a window of diagnostic, I had seen her. I opened him. I started the scanning of the system propulsivo. It was a fast thing, taken less than one minute. There was also a bar with my name above: it was, I thought, the tool of access to the functions of the vehicle. I tried to make to depart her/it in parallel to the before, but the two operations were in conflict and you/they had to have effected in sequence. I could finally activate the second phase of diagnostic, perhaps not even the last, but the bar of progression was slow: the useful window of throwing would be closed before.

«Lieutenant» I said. «To when the next window?»

«Uhm.» the hand reflected to pair of seconds. «A hour and minute trentacinque.»

«Too much» concluded. «This kind of jail opens me and you estranges from me.»

I felt someone whom noisily inhaled. It was Berliz.

«It completes the diagnostic one, Angel» it said the physician.

«No.»

«Insureds be reasonable that.»

«No.»

«Lieutenant, tells him him her» you/he/she said Berliz, shaken.

«Technically I am not able» it said the lieutenant. «It is the commander of his/her ship, you/he/she can do that of it that wants.»

«You allow to lose this antiquated ethical marinara, my goodness» it said Berliz lifting the voice.

«It will be antiquated for her» it beat acid the lieutenant.

The man moved some nets that blocked me the footstep and you/he/she made me the sign of green light. I turned on the motors. The environment slightly cleared around him.

«Thirty seconds to the closing of the window of throwing» it said the lieutenant.

I made him a paradoxical sign of regard with a braccino, then I picked up the limbs around my body.

I opened the display of the guide. You/they had been smart, making the very simple things: a red bracelet appeared in my visual field that individualized the direction of in demand propulsion, the data on my actual acceleration (almost zero) and those of the necessary acceleration. There was also the schedule esteemed of arrival on the surface Martian, in continuous increase since I was almost of it firm. I would have traveled for about one day. A good system for the one that was fasting of navigation in the space as me. The red bracelet didn't aim at Mars, obviously: Mars traveling would be moved, I would justly have had to aim to the place of the randez-vous, to the moment an anonymous tripletta of weak starlets. Definite not to worry too much me about the particular ones, I would have learned a lot of things during the journey; in the database, under the broken window, there were all the necessary instructions to optimize the run and to reduce the times of arrival.

«Angel!» it made doctor Berliz.

«We feel there later, doctor, I am a busy tantino» I cut short.

I extinguished the audio and I accelerated a little. Docilely, the motors pushed out me away from the station.

The lieutenant made me a rapid sign of regard.

Strange, you/he/she was never introduced, neither I had ever presented, even if obviously it knew my name to have felt him/it from the others.

Beh, had departed, with that excitement that luckily until then you/he/she had prevented me from thinking too much.

# 14.

I didn't employ a lot of time to understand that I would not have succeeded.

I had been leaving the orbital station for different minutes, by now, and also the Earth was to my shoulders.

In front of me a boundless ocean of stars and the side Moon. I watched the parameters of rout and I pushed the motors up to the acceleration suggested by the system. I spun fast, now, but without any perception of movement.

Around me there was the enormousness: I was not on board of a vehicle, surrounded by paratie and plates, inside an overall or stretched out on the berth of a cabin.

I was directly in the space, incapable to touch anything, also myself.

My hands hung petrified without I succeeded in moving a single finger of it, a phalanx, without I extracted some tactile, even though disagreeable provided that real feeling of it.

The slim network of coordinates overlapped to my vision of the space showing me figures and unbelievable distances.

And I didn't see a rectangle of space: my sight embraced the whole celestial sphere in the whole range of frequencies.

It was something that went beyond the human ability to elaborate the perceptions.

The radio kept silent as the web. The silence was deafening. I had to distract me, I knew him/it: I had a boundless database with which to play, a lot of things to be learned before reaching destination, an universe of sites and people to be contacted away web.

But I was impotent, frozen. The propellers pushed me toward the nothing and only a residual glare of wish prevented one attempt of mine of return the station.

But I would not even have known whether to make the manoeuvre, at that time.

I would have continued, incapable to govern the vehicle and myself, over Mars, until the nourishing substances of my capoccione you/they were not exhausted and my arrested brain, with who knows what feelings. A terminal man.

The astronauts on Mars would be dead.

I became unaware of the time that passed, until something it didn't happen that attracted my attention.

«Dad?» it said the voice of Daylight interrupting the thread of my thoughts.

You/he/she had opened a window web and the face of my daughter you/he/she had appeared from the nothing.

«Dad?» it repeated the image wrinkling the forehead.

It was a beautiful forehead; Daylight had always been nice, since small. It resembled a lot to his/her mother. I stupidly stared at her.

«Clicca on me, dad» it suggested my daughter.

Part of an unreal world was unreal. Cliccai: I would have paid her attention however, even if its presence derived from my damaged brain.

«Hi small» I murmured.

«Where you are, dad?»

I showed him/it to him sending her image of myself on board of the vehicle; I sent her the images bidimensionalizzate of that that I perceived around me a collection of extraordinary spherical resumptions of the boundless space.

Observing that that I sent her I became distracted again me.

«. etto to call the doctor by radio. Do you feel me dad?» Daylight insisted.

«How?» I did me stunned.

«You turn on the radio!» Daylight exclaimed.

Berliz. The radio. How did he do? Ah, certain, by now I had made him so many times that the thing resolved alone him. I believe. The channel fried for an instant.

«Here Angel» I risked.

«Angel!» it howled doctor Berliz with frightened voice.

Its image placed side by side him to that of my daughter; it had such a suffering expression that desire almost came me to laugh. It seemed indeed the real Berliz that I knew centuries, millennia ago.

«Not to cut out me, Angel!» it said Berliz.

Left half open plain the eyes, trying to return the analytical usual shrink; but it had a problem, I knew him/it. You/he/she could not study my face, since I didn't have one of them: it had few which to stick and it had to proceed gropingly for understanding what happened me.

However it seemed proper Berliz.

My daughter, seemed then, really my daughter. This thing was not entirely perhaps unreal as I believed.

«Space.» The tolds work.

It was an application of help and it came out of alone. The same word seemed to give me pain. Berliz or the such one that it resembled to Berliz, iperventilò for some second.

«Agoraphobia» concluded the doctor.

I left the open channel, I taken to observe Daylight and I took no interest me of Berliz.

«Now you are able scollegarti, dear. Thanks» it said Daylight Berliz, with more heat than I expected me.

«He/she listens to doctor Berliz dad. You do the good one» it said my daughter, worried, but with that amiability that could not be that his. The finestrella that showed Daylight disappeared, that remained of only the physician. Inside of me a motion of disappointment that induced me to shake the braccettis for some instant was born.

«Angel» it said Berliz. «Repeat me your name.»

What imbecility was it? But". you I give the good one" you/he/she had said Daylight.

«Angel» I said.

«Again» it said Berliz.

«Angel» I confirmed.

«Continuous to repeat him/it.»

«Angel, Angel, Angel.»

The physician approved of chin. I continued.

«Angel, Angel, Angel, Angel, Angel, Angel, Angel.»

«Of accord, Angel. You/he/she can be enough.»

«Angel, Angel, Angel, Angel, Angel, Angel, Angel.» The still shot.

«Enough, Angel» it said Berliz, patient.

Something inside of me was unbalance toward the ridanciano: I increased the volume of my voice.

«ANGELANGELANGELANGELANGEL.»

Berliz twisted him on the armchair or that that it was, prey to a funny exasperated expression.

"You do the good one" you/he/she had said Daylight.

I had to complete a herculean effort to succeed in stopping me. I panted, or better, credetti to do him/it; it seemed me to hardly have concluded an endless run.

«Listen well to me, Angel» it said the psychiatrist. «You have too many stimuli. You reduce your visual field, it looks only in front of the vehicle. You reduce the ghost, only tightened gangs.»

Inside of me there was a strange spirit of rebellion, but again I obeyed as a little boy ammodo.

«He/she listens to my voice Angel. We will do what you/they do, unfortunately, many sensitive children too much. We will become autistic. Let's close again us in ourselves. Assembled on you, your vehicle and my words, it allows to lose the outside.»

I tried to give him straight line but something in me it rebelled him to that voice. I didn't say anything, but I visualized my old lips that silently repeated my name.

I saw with indifference doctor Berliz that the jacket removed from him and arranged better him on the armchair.

«Angel» it started. «We don't know very well each other, I fear, even if we have been working together for quite a lot time. Did you know that I am impassioned of Greek mythology?»

Not mottos answer, imbambolato as I was; but Berliz he didn't allow to discourage.

«Fetonte. this name thing suggests you? Does it have to that to do with your mission, knows?»

My curiosity was to the least historians: the oppressive enormousness of the made only there out also me complex to listen. I felt me small small, lost in that dreadful swarming of stars.

«You know who was? Child of Helium, god of the Sun, and of the nymph Climene. According to the myth, to let to the friends that Helium was to see really his/her father, Fetonte begged him/it to let the wagon of the Sun drive him; but it was not an experienced driver: it lost the control of it, the horses him imbizzarrirono and they raced madly for the celestial time. They climbed too aloft before, burning a line of the sky and giving so origin in the Milky Street; they went down too much then next to the earth and they devastated Libya, that became a desert. Zeus climbed on on all the furies: to save the Earth cast a lightning against Fetonte, killing him/it. It was a terrible hit, the legend describes him/it in apocalyptic way.»

It didn't rub anything of it, curse. I tried to tell him him, but I felt a gigantic knot to the throat that I didn't have.

The physician refused to be silent. It jumped of pole in branch and it started to speak of astronomy.

«After the discovery of the first asteroids, the ancient existence of a planet was hypothesized set between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter; its fragmentation, following the dreadful impact with a comet, you/he/she would have explained the great number of objects distances orbitanti from the Sun very next among them. That hypothetical world had called Fetonte. appropriate name, would say.»

Berliz hoped in one intervention of mine, I knew him/it, but I was not prone to give him satisfaction. But yes, that continued to chatter. It was as a disagreeable musical foundation, it didn't have any possibility to shake me from my numbed numbness. Berliz the first button of the shirt unbuttoned him and the voice cleared him. It seemed it tried to reorganize the thoughts.

«Ehm, therefore: Fetonte. Yes, the law of Bode. The law of Bode is an empirical formula that expresses the length of the most greater semiassis of the orbits of the planets of the solar System. You/he/she had always been considered at the astronomers as a coincidence without meaning. There was then the discovery of Uranus, in 1781, that it seemed to corroborate her/it; so numerous astronomers turned their attention to the inclusive zone between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, where the law of Bode foresaw the existence of a planet that had not been observed never. In 1801 it was open a lower case new world, Cerere, really to the correct distance from the Sun to satisfy the law of Bode; in the 1802 Heinrich Olbers it discovered Pallade, a second small body; in 1804 and 1807 other two objects: Giunone and Dresses. Olbers hypothesized that all how many independent elements but the fragments of an only planet were not, perlappunto Fetonte, that had gone destroyed in the impact with a comet. Meanwhile they continued to be found others of these fragments; the hypothesis of Olbers continued to acquire popularity, until new cosmological models they were not born to more solid theoretical base. For the the old Olbers had made anymore his/her time. The hypothesis Fetonte was forgotten. And we have reached our days Angel. The reactor Williamson, the hunger of iridium, a resumption of the activities of spatial exploration, approves the lack of iridium on the surface of the Earth. On the surface, however, and in the a little deep layers. But do you know that the iridium is abundant in the terrestrial nucleus? It is a dense and heavy element, curtains to accumulate in the planetary cores because of the strength of gravity. Unfortunately it would not be cheap to dig for thousand of kilometers to the search of iridium. Easier it is to go to the space. The fallen meteorites on the celestial bodies are apportatrici of iridium; we have found him/it on all the worlds that we have visited, but in special way on Mars. On his/her surface, in the superior stratigraphy; which is already strange. But above all the asymmetry of its distribution is strange: the three quarters of the iridium Martian they come from the northern hemisphere. Also from a geographical point of view there is a strange difference among the two hemispheres: to north of the equator enormous lowlands are found covered by lava castings while to south the surface is covered from great plateaus marked by thousand of craters. Because? And still: because Mars has two natural satellites, Phobos and Deimos, captured with its strength of gravity and that they have a little stable orbits, as if Mars had acquired them in recent times? Finally, on Mars there is methane. But I return there among a moment, Angel.»

Doctor Berliz a moment interrupted him to drink a bicchier of water.

Where had you/he/she extracted these specialistic information? It was a psychiatrist not an astrophysicist. Then I understood. That sly person had talked to Daylight. I have always loved the space, from small I had a solar system in miniature with the planets in movement. You/they were done very well, I stayed to observe them for times reading the many books that my father bought me on the matter. Then the passion demands more practical cedette, but the charm of the space I kept on suffering him/it however.

Beh, that man had succeeded in attracting my attention and to make humor change me: now I wanted that he didn't stop, I needed the rhythm nenioso of his/her words. Berliz seemed to focus himself/herself/themselves to succeed in continuing. You smoothed the crinkled forehead looking for ideas, then it seemed to look at verse of me with renewed vigor.

«Therefore, Angel, Fetonte. Olbers would be pleased, today, because the existence of an ancient planet between Mars and Jupiter would explain a lot of things; its breakup would have watered the surrounding space of rubble. the asteroids. that been born by the bowel of Fetonte you/they would have sprinkled of iridium the surrounding worlds, especially Mars, that would have been able to be to great deal himself/herself/themselves next to the place of the disaster. The throw of material would primarily have struck a hemisphere of Mars, that from the part of Fetonte, therefore no distribution uniform of the iridium on the surface. A theory already proposed in 1980, and confirmed by scientific tests in 2008, it strengthens this thesis: the theory of a collision of the planet with an object of great dimensions happened on the northern hemisphere. As for the satellites of Mars. Phobos and Deimos could be two rocks ounces it departs integral of Fetonte, acquired by this to the action of his/her destruction or pieces of Mars removed in the impact. And the methane? We know that the methane can derive from volcanic activity, microbial forms of life or, it looks at case, fall of bodies containing methane from the space. However the methane is an unstable gas, that is decomposed by the ultraviolet radiation in 340 year-old one period under the conditions atmospheric Martian; therefore its presence relatively points out the existence of a recent source some gas. Recent; therefore volcanic activity is excluded: Mars is not more active from a piece. And the search of forms of life Martian able to produce methane is bankrupt. Therefore the methane has to originate from the impact with an external body.»

It kept on chattering for a beautiful po.' Parlava di Fetonte e delle ultime teorie; avevo ancora la tremarella, anche se lo ascoltavo con impegno. It was difficult to avoid to think to where I was me. I had never spoken, until then, so Berliz, that began to have a tired air, committed the small error to look for my approval. As skilled as it was always also a human being.

«Then Angel» it said puffing. «There is something on the matter that you want to ask me?»

I knew that if I/you had asked questions I would have put him in difficulty; you/he/she had certainly unloaded that given by the net and you/he/she had had time to read them to him, but if I/you had asked him something of precise you/he/she would have had to make a specific search before answering me. I would have pinched him. But despite the difficult moment I stayed a person of good heart however, figuratively, so I didn't rage.

«No, thanks, doctor» I answered.

Berliz tightened a few the eyes and me I followed his/her look, that diverted on something that was him near but outside the field visual. Certain. You/he/she was analyzing my voice. Even if synthesized, by now it was detector of my levels of tension as if you/he/she had been produced by true vocal chords. What he/she saw you don't have to satisfy him/it because he allowed to escape a smorfietta of disappointment: he/she knew that I was out still of head.

«I was thinking a thing» it restarted Berliz. «I wonder me if you have wondered because you have been select for this mission.»

I started to believe that Berliz had a lot some schizophrenic: it changed continuously matter.

To well to reflect us however concluded that, even though with awkward attitude, he was involving from manual: if he/she didn't succeed in distracting me with an antiseptic matter, you/he/she could have more success speaking of me. And it didn't intend to interrupt his/her fire of line: if you/he/she had broken the rhythm I would be ripiombato in a state of alienated apathy.

However you/he/she had asked me a question. I answered him with a point of malice, knowing that I would have upset him.

«Because I am a fifty-fifty man, sacrificabile» I said without bitterness.

It was an answer apparently depressed, but in reality I was certain that it was in good correct part: a mission of help failed with some corpse in more you/he/she would not have received a beautiful pleasure from the public opinion, better using someone that had few of human. Even in case of failure you/they would have convinced Daylight not to speak, tacitando the witnesses of the whole operation. Also for this the thing had been managed with so much discretion.

The cheek of Berliz had a lower case nervous wriggle that didn't escape me. The man widened in a forced smile.

«Street, Angel» it said. «Apart the human point of view, the city has run over on you. You are precious. No, it is that it served a fast intervention. Don't need a lot of oxygen, you are small and you don't hear again any acceleration. A minuscule shuttle was enough; you are in a cap armored to test of radiations, you/he/she has been to realize effortless one that suited him for the propellers of it. You/he/she is not had to create a special vehicle, what you have is very simple and it has a ridiculous mass. It will be easy for you to move you on Mars. You are light, you have a reactor incorporated Williamson that gives you the energy that serves you. You have good sensors and very smart six.»

«Unff.» The hisseds.

You/he/she was flattering me, I knew him/it, but my ego was not able whether to rejoyce. And the things that it said were reasonable. It almost convinced me. But you/he/she was discovered, by now I knew, whether to do for having that that I wanted, that had wanted always.

«You are kind, doctor» I said with attention.

They were the first words that came me to mind, and they were not important: wanting, I could give any intonation to my voice, I had an endless range among which to choose; I chose that that would mostly have disturbed Berliz: tension, control to the limit, a new fall of interest for his/her gossips. Berliz peered at to side and slightly turned pale.

«Ugh.» bofonchiò. «I don't want to annoy you with my preferred matters. Because you don't propose something you? I become me account that at times I exaggerate, with my chatters. Of thing you want to speak?»

I didn't answer him to beautiful mail. This did him/it worry more also.

«Angel» it said Berliz with vivacity. «Ehm, tries this way. To complete your mission is well that you know more something on yourself. You/he/she can be you useful, we don't know what you will find. I would say that it is the time to look at your inside Angel. We see together thing you are.»

Bingo. It was the time. You/he/she had come from dad. I had always asked him him some detail on the myself mechanic, but the physician always had svicolato. He/she knew well that I cared. That crisis was taken for making to capitulate him/it it.

«Of accord» I said.

I still used the voice in different way: share, energy, almost enthusiasm. Berliz ogled to side and breathed a light sigh of relief.

We worked together this way finally on the exabyte doing something that Berliz had always refused me,: we analyzed my hardware.

There was a whole file on me, I had glimpse him snooping for my account before being distracted from external events. I could not freely enter you, but Berliz had the password of it. The man unbuttoned him and under his/her guide I started to flow the information on me. I contemporarily opened five windows and I observed my schemes inside bioelettrici. I was fascinating, I have to say. Perhaps also a disgusting pochino. Inclusive only then the extraordinary job that you/they had done to the laboratory. I was a wired brain with endless possibilities. I was not particularly smart, I knew him/it. I had only a merit: an absolute adaptability. My brain had survived very well without body and potentially you/he/she could be interfacciato with any system, also to guarantee him oxygen and nourishment adjusted. Berliz piloted me among my ganglions showing me the interconnections and the terminal block, as they jokingly called her/it to the laboratory: the knot of junction among systems bioelettrici and voters pure. It was an object complicated fixture in my cerebellum; it had to guarantee the functionality, but also the safety towards unexpected events: omission or inversion of connections, overloads of the electric systems, synchronization among asyncronous elements, modificabilità in the time and autodiagnostica.

The modificabilità was a fundamental aspect: my brain changed continuously, slowly, suiting himself/herself/itself for the sensory characteristics and fattuali of the hardware that it was my body. But it was not everything so clear and evident as you/he/she could be believed: my real potentialities were unknown, as the influence of my emotional sphere on the whole system. Influence there was, eccome. The best breakthroughs in the dominion of my systems had done them following a push sensitive person produced by stimuli day-pupils.

This full immersion in myself lasted quite a lot, a lot of times, I would not know how to say how much. Berliz was untiring in to show me that that it interested more me, pushed by the demand to help me. In spite of his/her good wish I was him/it sfiancando, I knew him/it: I was accustomed to manage things and thoughts in parallel, contrarily to him. In more than an occasion I made him a gust of questions each uprooted from the others; every had to bring forth one different mental operation of mine, but Berliz started to sweat for succeeding in following me. I began me to explain to him: while I was flowing the contents of the database I spoke to him than I had learned until then. The physician was intelligent, but you/he/she was only a psychiatrist; certain the doctor Of the you/he/she would have known how to hold you/he/she makes a will me, my fisicità was more his/her subject.

Berliz panted but it was not given for defeated: you/he/she had succeeded in interesting me, he/she didn't want to lose the occasion to bring me to the extreme introspection.

Despite his/her fears and his/her trails reticences, didn't show particular uneasiness. I was a well oiled car devoted to the learning of itself same. Not said anymore a lot of weight to that that it made Berliz, only to his/her voice; notaries vaguely that the physician was sometimes granted of the food and of the water, when he saw me particularly absorbed him assentava for some instant (I imagine for freeing himself/herself/themselves of I did and urine).

From a certain moment in then his/her voice it did him hoarse, I started to notice a veil of bristly beard that covered his cheeks. Under the eyes it had two ample crisp purses, almost swollen, in the hand a coffeepot in permanent to reboil. I perceived all this in remote way.

More times Berliz suggested me to still tighten my field of perception, until the exabyte it didn't exist only.

I went alone by now on: the finestrella with the image of Berliz showed me a man destroyed by the tiredness, stretched out on a plain surface, busy to russicchiare without reservedness.

I studied, I studied, I studied, until the first symptoms of the sleep they began to consume my attention. I started not to understand as I was doing. The things mixed him among them, I didn't know more even thing I was me.

Was I an iron giant, a round metallic palletta or a simple grey sponge?

The memory of my old human body overlapped to the rest bringing me to a complete confusion. You/he/she was beginning that syndrome onirica that well I knew; by now I was in procinto to slip in the sleep, slowly, pleasantly.

I passed out with a great sense of liberation.

# 15.

I was awake. I did for opening completely my visual horizon, but I had self-control me. I didn't know where I was neither how much time was departed from the beginning of the trip. I opened the window of navigation and I saw how much it stayed for reaching Mars. Sixteen hours, few less.

More than eight hours I had slept.

The propeller did its duty, I launched one diagnostic so much to feel me sure. I looked only in before, assembling me on the destination: there were still the three weak starlets endeavors of red and the suitable real acceleration in mortar, not very different from the value of target.

I felt well me. I had studied myself: I knew that I had enough energy, with that body, to face a pair of missions as that. The oxygen was not a problem, from when I had been connected to the vehicle, I had stopped consuming mine and I drew to that some escorts: a long cable connected me to the resources of my shuttle as an umbilical cord. I relaxed me. The sight of the space didn't upset me more: I widened my visual field without exaggerating. He/she is never known. I began to study the geography of Mars and the information that were in the exabyte respect to the ownerships of the city on the red planet. They seemed exhaustive. I studied the better point of the landing and some physical characteristic of the landscape that I would have met.

I would have weighed few kilos, on ground Martian, but I would have had to imagine a way in which to move me. Unfortunately the thing was not discounted. My braccias were efficient certainly, but they were so versatile that would have had to choose me same the best method for arrancare. Because of this would be treated, probably. At least to the beginning.

When the moment of the inversion of push came I was so assembled that almost I didn't hasten of it; I was fifty-fifty trip, by now. I reduced the motors to the least one, I reseted the propulsion, I slowly rotated the nozzles bringing them to direct the throws in the sense of march, in front of me. I brought the acceleration to nominal levels; I didn't feel any solicitation, for a man in meat and bones you/he/she would have been hard, also with the whole possible training. You/he/she would have withstood, certain, but only for very limited once.

A frigolio from the web. I opened a window. It was Daylight.

«Hi, dad. They tell me that it is everything to place» it said.

It had an air some brim but him it checked well. Weakly smiled.

«If you are sleeping it is the time to wake up you. To this point you are fifty-fifty run. My voice will come you with a delay of four or five minutes, and your answer will arrive to me after the same time. Impossible to make a true dialogue. Make to know me how you are. The small ones greet you, and also me. We hear again there more in there.»

I felt me pervaded by a sense of heat. I am a father, I have to say him/it before every other thing.

I didn't want to be hasty, with my daughter, but I didn't even want to give her impression to feel only me, there out, basting a long soliloquy. This way I was reduced me to the main point.

«I feel me in form» I said. «The things regularly proceed. Out it is magnificent here, I will have to tell quite a lot to my nephews. You/he/she has been a pleasure for me to feel you Daylight. Now I start me studying, I have to grind of it of things. A regard to all how much. It will be all right.»

I wondered me if I played some artificial, so impersonal and detached, but I think that the correct thing I did: the astronauts when they are busy really they do so, they are shiny and professional. Gives a safety idea and reliability. This way I wanted to seem to my daughter and to who other listened to me. I started to study again me. Now that knew almost all on the wiring of my brain, I could do something that I would not have suspected then never to understand before: I launched one diagnostic on myself. Not to make a will the inside of my brain, obviously; nobody would have been able to do him/it. I tried to verify only the interconnections and the levels of tension bioelettrica.

It was a cosuccia to face for degrees: I opened the window of diagnostic and I chose the option angel. It opened a sottofinestra with the parameters of configuration. They concerned the signals that would have been launched by the external generator to the general terminal block. Everything, their intensity: there was a 100% default value. Not knowing of it big that, I left alone that number and I passed to other. The duration of the test: an only sequence or a series of loop you/he/she could be launched to choice. I planned an only sequence, then I passed over. I now had to select the entries to make a will: the sottofinestra was complex, it showed a big number of options, every selezionabile with a box of it sprouts. With my new knowledges I could recognize the most greater part of the options: they were the identifiers of the input channels. Us n'erano different hundred; I knew that in reality the generator of the signals of test selected only a channel to the time and the anticipated signal submitted him investing the exact area of the brain to solicit. The brain would have responded to the elementary solicitation, naturally. Not in complex and sophisticated way: to minuscule stimulus, lower case letter reaction; I would not even have realized of it but the replica bioelettrica of my grey subject you/he/she would have reached the correct channels on the terminal block, in opposite direction to that of the stimulus. My answer could come so to the other side of the interface by now convert in electric signals, and therefore to reach to the external circumferentors interconnected for the reading and the analysis.

It seemed complicated, I know him/it, and to the moment I didn't know more a lot. But it worked.

I was traccheggiando: I observed anchor, uncertain, the long list of the possible tests, each legacy to one primary function of mine. Don't be wrong and not to neglect anything I had solo to sprout together all of them: it didn't interest me to make a will only a part of myself, that the diagnostic one did everything that that he/she knew. It was also more express: I chose the option all the channels and I passed to other.

There were other windows and options, but I didn't understand there big that; that that I knew it was that if I/you had left the values of default every thing you/he/she would correctly have been managed.

"Let's stop well her. We launch the test" I told me.

I returned to the principal window. The option start was her/it before screens her/it.

Cliccai.

It began everything with a curious feeling; there was something, inside, something that inflated, he expanded plain pian riempiendomi, almost suffocating me. I remained to observe me, curious. There was a that of physicist in how much it happened, a tactile perception under my steel cap; but it was impossible, I was only a brain, an insensitive organ materially.

Then, of sudden, something dreadful attacked me: the external space disappeared from my horizon and I slipped straight me in myself.

I sailed in a heterogeneous universe of incomprehensible stings; my emotions became vivid, conflittuali, inconfinabili.

I was a splinter of insane and suffering conscience.

I ideally groped as if I drowned, as if million of my fingers adunches above scabrous bluffs were skinned for holding me floating.

An ocean inside. Terrible infinity.

It was too much too much.

Unbearable. Inaffrontabile.

I didn't find other way of running away whether to submit me to the only mechanism known to my mind: I fainted.

I don't know for how much time I remained without knowledge; perhaps a few minutes, perhaps a few times.

It was the voice of Berliz to bring me to the reality; to the beginning it was an element disturbante, as soon as perceivable in the ecstatic immobility of my world. I was absorbed in the peace.

The psychiatrist insisted stimulating me and calling me in all the ways that he knew. I let him/it do.

It was a beautiful demonstration of eclecticism: Berliz tried with the gentleness, then with the rudeness; it followed the irascible invective contemplated to one irascible reaction of mine, then a tender prompt toward the sentimental pantheism which I would have had to loosen communicating him to me every melanconico of mine thawing.

I didn't pronounce me.

It continued then with a hymn to the talentuoso solipsismo to motive for my Homeric personal enterprise whose exaltation would have had to sustain to big voice; it finally flowed in the astrofilia mysticism from whose lyricism would have had to pronounce me bound.

In short, anything also to make to speak to me.

I was him/it to feel but without listening to him/it, I was emotionally prostrated.

But Berliz started to be indisponente. I had to remove from me him of back.

«Yes» I said.

The man immediately could not feel me, however; some minutes were needed that my voice ploughed the space and came on the Earth. I suffered with calm patience the last bursts of the psychiatrist until that fifty-fifty discourse he didn't interrupt and it did a funny smorfietta of amazement.

My message had arrived to him.

«Angel, curse» Berliz exclaimed. «Not to make jokes of the kind anymore. We cannot have a normal conversation, you know him/it. Too much distant. Tell me thing has happened, thing we can do from here. Be exhaustive, we avoid the game of the questions and answers, would like us a lot of time. From now on I would like, that I chatted holding adjourns us on what happens. Understood?»

If I was not wrong, you/he/she had concluded with a question him same. Berliz had to have a worry of the devil, rarely it was contradictory.

But it was right, it was correct that they were informed of all of my movements. Nevertheless it was a nuisance: I would have had to face difficulty and to assemble to resolve her to me; the last thing of which I had need was to repeat as an idiot what I had seen or felt, while I was being pressed from who knows what events.

This way I started a mental operation in background, completely automatic, that would have provveduto from that moment in then to transmit to the Earth everything that that I observed in the field of the visible one and what felt to the radio besides my same voice.

From the Earth you/they would not continually have disturbed me with their questions and you/they would have had a precise idea of the situation more than with thousand words.

I noticed then only that there was an open finestrella that asked for my attention. It brought the result of the diagnostic one"; connections ok" it said. The closed ones without thinking twice of us.

«Well» I started, with big work.

I tried to assemble me, but it didn't care anything of it. In the space there was calm to redundance. It pervaded me.

«Well» I repeated. «I can reassume this way. I have launched the diagnostic one on myself, without planning strange parameters. A fast cosina. You would be able. ugh. ugh. inver pensar that the success me arrise, but. nisba: son ito out of space and time. Poscia rieccomi here, pregnant of boldness. The diagnostic one signals correct result but me on this I nourish stercoraria opinion.»

I remember that had lavish placazione in every where.

Ristetti, tames.

Something in me played sbieco, I was worthwhile of it but a lukewarm sentor of the pleased one spread of around saturating me.

I was of done honey and finished up.

After the necessary minutes the image of Berliz assumed a twisted posture, the eyes of the psychiatrist were left half open, in a way that seemed me such yes from manual that I annotated him to me I duly toast to the notebook the qual I extracted, I lined and ridisposi in the bulgy tasconcino of my jeans.

A part of me was delighted, ascertaining that the thoughts were organized me in endecasillabi to kissed rhyme.

Another part was dismayed; but joy still triumphed, at last.

«Angel» the physician started, with extreme caution. «You, regret Angel to tell me as you feel yourself, with the maximum precision, and as you see the mission in progress?»

«Niuna asks, you suggested from now on» I replied, after the necessary lead times, besides enchanting. «And answered niuna you will have.»

The time flew. Minutes of extemporaneous happiness.

«Yes. Ehm. I know The said» it made Berliz imitating my tone of voice. «Yes. But. The considered us. I would appreciate if with simple. ugh, contained exultation The wanted render. ugh, distinguished your thought. and-ehm, unraveling the deadly clouds that approach you to the cor.»

When I heard that answer, I clapped the hands (all and four) thankful for the scent of complicity that permeommi.

The metallic limbs made to wave the plates of the space craft.

«And is» granted. «Therefore. mission? Ouch, forgetful of the arcane cagion of my ristar among these stars, son here to graze me some divine love. Idyllic it is the until that here portommi: contemplar the incontemplabile infinity of the cosmos. Nothing doing, over this. My mission both this.»

The time unthread. My cor overflowed dear to profusion.

«Angel» it said Berliz with the upright hair. «Listen well to me. You are. upset. It examines the exabyte. It looks who are and where you are.»

The omo kept on storming me of recommendations, mentr'io I tried a lyric composition to the time of the sky and the stars; with my horror the rhyme limped, and I abdicated.

The time pitted its wheats.

When I heard chilometrico anthology of invectives of the terrestrial friend, to me, that radiant and saint I was by now ethereal in the navigar in cotal celestial sea, reproach assisted me without theme.

«Never» I objected, I don't know thing good; trembling of ambascia, calm eppur.

The pallor of Berliz was also evident from that disheveled image which I paid scarce attention.

Then I came basito from the advent of a sweet maid, that appressossi to plasters him luminary for parlottar with him certain of ponderous matter. The baby aimed dared a falangetta, to me you/he/she turns.

«Dad, cries immediately her to make the fool» you/he/she said (the stupid epithet was ever seemed me more polite). «Memoirs when uncle Dan and you did to competition to whom drank more gins? You expressed yourself in verses and you didn't listen to anybody. His/her mother made you return to reason howling you of ugly.»

«My dear girl.» it said doctor Berliz.

He/she talked to the baby and I felt to bad punishment. I increased the volume and I filtered better the segnal.

«... It is everything other thing. We don't know what has happened him, but of certain it is not drunk.»

«It behaves as if the were» it said her, sure of his/her fact. I observed him. It was my daughter, since dad had called me. Yes, I felt him/it, the assertion was veracious. Did this upset me: for inductive trial, would Berliz have been my child if also he had called me dad? And would you/he/she have done him? If yes: as I had given birth to him, me that I was only a beautiful ovetto? Ovetto. Already. I had perhaps opened, I imagined a crowd of Berliz that you/they interested for going out of my corpicello. No, I had to go awry, assumes him mine it erred: not inductive, but deductive logic I had to use. From the general to the particular one, so I had to act; but graduated around not us n'erano, so no deduction; the last paper was the demonstration for absurd. And the absurd situation was; the correct criterion seemed therefore me. Then I meditated": Berliz, my child. If the were I would be his/her father; in such case I would have fornicated. With that he fornicates?"

The thing partly it escaped me: I was chubby and liscettino. And then, this matter of the to fornicate. who fornicates it is in the The fornicateds. Imenotteri stuff. I was well other; always artropode, certain, but I threw more on the arachnid. However, for me to conceive was inconceivable.

"And finally" I thought" if indeed Berliz were me descending, it would give downward; if of my stock, you/he/she would already have bursted; if of my stock, you/he/she would already be eradicated; if it were my race, it would have some gills; if blood of my blood, were very bloodless."

It was there instead in shape and well erect, breathing to full bellows. Rather it seemed, it bursted of health: I immediately obviously covered me the ears, but not happened nothing irreparable. I was wandering, better returning to bomb. I covered again me the ears, worried, but he/she anchors alcunché it didn't happen. These forgeries you alarm they were annoying and they dissuaded me from the matter that it was me to heart. I had to return to bo. on the matter that pressed me.

Therefore, Berliz. And if, was to produce Berliz, reproduced me for mitosis as a beautiful cellulone?

"If I was separated me

and pits my issue

it would be diffuse a great deal

it would give to the zoppìa."

I hummed joyful. Did I immediately stop me; qual poetonzolo of thickness would be abandoned to of the mediocre ettasillabis? Me no of certain.

I allowed to lose all and I observed the images from the Earth.

Berliz was there, zittin zittone, and it didn't even walk. Then also that of the mitosis was a hypothesis to discard.

I appraised with calm my considerations.

I was delighted a lot me: good heavens, that incontestable reasons.

Then Berliz was not my child. Well.

However that baby was my daughter. I knew him/it, I was certain of it.

For her there was the same problem. Yes, it was everything illogical; I had to climb over the logic and to go over, to the transcendent one. But in qual way? Taken by the doubt, I wrinkled with strength my pediment, producing a big noise with the steel torn of the face. Uhm but the steel him torn? Was it possible then, to do something with all these popòs of c? The thing played even cacophonous (here again the popò), but not eran bathes there there in the space. To avoid to do me her I set definite to ignore me and I meditated.

Transcendence. Yes, after all it was a simple matter. I skimmed through the bibbia, the apex recognized of the transcendence, and it was a big discovery. Me tocchicchiai the chest: I didn't have ribs, not even one. In how much man I would have owed, even if I don't know how much.

But. any rib; if I/you had had two of them, one, also fractions, that The know. three eleventh of whole. But of ribs not even the shade. And here is the test: so him fan the females, said the bibbia. It was there, my rib, spoke to me from the Earth. Pretty, while the Berliz fixed me.

The two took to speak dense rent animately discussing. It came therefore my turn of profferir word with those that quarreled still.

«Sweet and sugary Figliuola» I expressed. «Niuno has to contradict you. Nemmanco the brute that parlommi toasts. Ei won't owe giappiù to address some breath. Deh!»

The deh! it came well me. I silently repeated him/it more times with my fleshy lips, but the first one stayed the best.

I lay, at last, surrendering to the fainting for that two spectacular blue eyes (of the baby, not of the brute).

The giunonica creature still had to battibeccare coll'indefesso guy. When my message came her it stopped speaking and it set the palms of the hands against the sides.

«Then dad» it told tall voice. «Listen well to me and you do what I tell you. Fault, my goodness.»

I preset me to solicit the stelluccia to not propalar curses, but she continued with definite.

«It records how much it follows, then you repeat to iosa: immediately cries her/it, dad, or I come there and I do you her to see bigie!»

The missive was absurd, but I recorded.

I didn't exactly know how much it meant to iosa, but I imagined it was quite a lot. I began to repeat what became soon a tedious refrain. So unbearable, rather, that studied him/it to me: thing I had to plant, and where? In name of qual mannerism agricolturale, then? And thing there could be of grey that my daughter wanted to show me? And would you/he/she have been so terrible, if you/he/she had done him? Then I analyzed the tone of his/her voice: yes, you/he/she would have been him/it.

I compared the sentence with that that there was in the database and I found the preceding communication of Daylight from the Earth; the tone was different entirely, I also heard my balanced answer: perbaccolina, seemed indeed a well-mannered signorino!

Ripercorsi to bashful the phases that had brought me until there and that you/they were ended in the exabyte. I reconstructed so my recent history: boring and troublesome, but perfusa of tension.

My peaceful serenity slowly dissolved him.

«Be'» I told the end. «I am here again.»

I felt me disorientated. I remembered very well all until I had not launched the diagnostic one, then my memoirs entangled him. I tried to remember what had happened, but only days after I would have had the answer: also my delirium was ended in the exabyte. I employed the necessary time to the replica from the Earth to take back the control of myself. I felt me to place, now, but I had the vague conscience to have combined an eccentric of it.

«God I thank you» it made Berliz throwing the breath.

Daylight been granted a sorrisetto of sufficiency: he/she knew more her of the physicians, on his/her father.

«I have spoken with Of the» it said the doctor. «We think about knowing what has happened. It frames your limbs, Angel, and move only them for an instant.»

When the message came me I didn't answer; I confined me to look me at the hands and I did a timid hi hi with everybody and four. I patiently attended that to Berliz the images came. When it happened, the man slightly blushed.

«Should not happen» it said. «You should not be able to do him/it. We have the recordings of the operations of preparation to the trip done in the laboratory. An error has been committed on her/it. terminal block. Too much of run, I suppose. The channels of I/O for your legs are connected on the wrong points. I repeat. Your hardware should not work. If it works it is because your brain has found the way of doing to work him/it, you/he/she is adapted. And that's why you have slept so much during the trip toward the orbital station: to succeed in unraveling the skein, your brain has had to extinguish the non essential systems. È. an impossible thing. But you/he/she is happened, you/he/she has gone for strength so.»

Berliz appeared at once enthusiastic and worried.

«For this the diagnostic one has given good result» taken back. «However, however smart, the brain has not resolved everything. It was not able. That of the limbs is a problematic channel however. When you use too much it other systems and you they are destabilized you enter a phase of scarce control of yourself. The diagnostic one has strongly solicited him/it, so much to be made to faint you for a sort of. overloaded. From awake you live the scarce control as a kind of drunkenness, it seems. At least, so you/he/she has been this time.»

«How?» I felt Daylight join in conversation, while it was staring at the doctor with a certain anxiety. «He/she wants to say that it will still happen?»

Berliz observed my daughter with understanding.

«It is possible, yes. Angel, on Mars it walks less that are able. It rests the limbs, take yourself your times.»

"Fantastic" I thought.

I was as a kind of time bomb, ready to go off not in the insanity as soon as my brain had had of it enough. That mission didn't enjoy any best auspices. I wondered me if it were the case of lasciar to lose. I heard Daylight that exactly told Berliz this. The physician tightened him in the shoulders: he thought that that pits a decision that was not up to him.

«You will have felt Angel» it said turned to me. «You have to decide you. Think well of us.»

There was not the physical time to baste a new mission, any other it had the possibility to travel to my acceleration consuming a laughable quantity of fuel. Berliz had said that I had to decide, but in reality I didn't have the faculty of it: there was there people from some part in trouble before and the residue of a man was able to his/her risk to bring help.

The choice was easy.

# 16.

Mars was rather notable seen from far. A perfect sphere nearly bleached to both the poles. They saw numerous craters and endless tonalities of red, from the red brick to the dark reddish of the zones in faint light. From where trace of human activity was it was not noticed. I resorted to the exabyte to look for the zone of landing. It was soon enough still, to dir the truth, but I quivered for going down on the planet.

Now that that million of kilometers were behind the shoulders, I saw from now on to me a concrete thing, almost tangible.

It is very beautiful.

The deceleration continued for a long time, while I was learning me the data and the procedure of landing. What it didn't exist. Some landing was not anticipated on the planet, only a long fall, a placid glide toward the ground with the aid of three enormous parachutes. My vector would be broken to the ground, by now useless. The trip back would already have been taken with the shuttle of our astronauts on the surface.

Beh, nothing of badly, even if to that vehicle I was almost gotten used; I understood, however, that was not done for managing a landing against gravity. It was a simple too mean. Just for this we had used him.

Mars was nearbyer, now.

With the exabyte I individualized the anticipated zone for the landing, not distant from the site where the ship was found for the return. Tells my way a glance the area. I was well, now, and I used all the frequencies of the ghost. It was a chaos, from that distance the signals that arrived to me were so as that didn't succeed to focus nothing. I confined me to peer at to the frequencies radio, but I didn't perceive alcunché; I changed gang and I tried to observe some particular but nothing.

I passed to the infrared ones.

The choice resulted most useful: in the whole surface of interest and over, for about ten kilometers, a strange spot of different tonality stretched him from the rest of the planet.

«A stain, to the infrared ones» I said to tall voice, turned to myself. «Almost rectangular. I don't understand what both. I know only that is uniform, contrarily to the rest of the ground around how various according to the latitude and of the physical nature. According to the exabyte they miss fifteen minutes to the entry in atmosphere. I should go to insert me in that. hole. I don't like at all it. It would seem.»

I didn't end the sentence because from the Earth Berliz intervened. The face of the man appeared in a finestrella of my screen. It seemed tense.

«Excuse me Angel, perhaps bushels speaking, but down here the telescopes have individualized a storm of sand in your region. It is very wide. An accursed adversity. We are trying to calculate direction and intensity of the winds. You understand. it is to problem, considering that you will go down to the ground sustained by the air Martian.»

Here is thing was: a storm. I had read something, on the storms Martian. You/they could last days and to involve the whole surface of the planet. Perhaps it was guilt of the lack of water in surface and of a dense atmosphere; both on the Earth have an inertial function and of levelling of the superficial temperature, but on Mars the thermal excursions went among the less centoquarantas to the more winds degrees, with variations also a lot of rapidses because of the incapability of the surface to hold back the heat. The absence of massive clouds increased the loss of thermal energy for irraggiamento toward the external space.

«It is a problem, yes» I reflected, trying to keep the calm. «If stings right to the zone of landing I will be pushed far. And I don't know how much they will hold up the parachutes with my load and the storm. To end, doesn't have idea of whether to land. The exabyte doesn't know what I am looking: too wide, this snowstorm.»

Now that knew what it was and that I had subsequently drawn near, I succeeded in the gigantic clouds of dust that swept that world.

Of sudden the point of a rocky peak appeared on the surface, whereas sand was temporarily spaced out. It happened only for some instants, therefore the chaos returned.

Half minute happened again later.

I focused me: still some second, then another flash. I brought at the most my senses and I almost photographed mentally the phenomenon: well I now had my point of reference. More than one, for the truth. The exabyte had everything in file, all it took is making the necessary comparisons.

I individualized three points on the surface Martian, three mounds very well recognizable.

The exabyte showed me their names in code and the physical characteristics, thing of which I didn't care.

I went looking for the options to reduce the information brought to screen: with all those writings I would not have seen nient'altro. Individualized the three points, I opened a window with the map of Mars and I went up again to the place of fall; I overlapped him/it to that that I saw at that time, that is nothing: the zone of target was in the beautiful mean of the storm. I positioned a signals on the objective making him/it permanent.

«If don't have best ideas, there on the Earth, I will do so: the telemetry can give me the distance from the planet. With the points of reference I can calculate the speed and direction of the wind next to the point of landing. For the speed I will have to get by me, I believe. I will mark a pair of flags on the screen, near, on the manager of the wind. I will calculate the distance among the time and they that it employs the cloud of dust to pass from one to the other. Distance fratto time, I get the speed. More or less mine maximum, in physics.»

I tried. If nothing else I knew how to calculate very well the times.

In base to my accounts the wind was around seventy kilometers an hour. I slipped me in the exabyte and I tried a simulation of the phase of landing. Luckily it was well sort and configurabile. I planned the speed of the wind and I made different tests.

In all the simulations, the parachutes held up for the first six minutes, then they went to ramengo. I saw my poor man myself that it fell in acceleration with the load of oxygen and quant'altro, breaking himself/herself/itself on the ground Martian in disastrous way. It had to hurt. The planners had not even had the delicacy to interrupt the simulation before the impact. What an insensitive people.

It came me an idea. I restarted the simulated descent, but this time I delayed the opening of the parachutes: I spun quite a lot, straight enough, since I was a simple iron block in free fall. When I opened them the parachutes they held up, bringing to slow down me in reasonable way. They spent two minutes, two minutes of nightmare sballottamenti, therefore I touched the ground, in prevalence sandy, with tumbles that would have dismembered a man. According to the program my body would have held up, instead, and also my load: a ciambellona was seen around the transport that inflated almost instantly him and it allowed him to bounce without breaking himself/herself/themselves. But there was a matter. The simulation was made with the wind, instead this was a storm of sand, very denser and dangerous. For safety I would have had to delay even more the opening of the parachutes using them that so much to damp the descent in vertical.

I made other tests, finally definite: thirty seconds. I would have opened to thirty seconds from the impact; I would have been dragged in horizontal for around six hundred meters. This way, if I/you was thrown myself six hundred meters windward, I would be fallen correct correct where I wanted.

I had the clear ideas, or at least it seemed me.

Then I considered us: I was stupid indeed. I learned me the map and I saw that if I/you had done in that way I would never have reached destination: I would have broken against a beautiful costone of rock, a barrier duretta tall three hundred meters set on the line of the wind.

I would have aimed straight well then at that barrier. It was a good point of reference, also visual. Throwing me there I would never have him incocciata, I would have been moved by the front of the storm landing to around four hundred meters from my target. I could also be there.

I referred all the calculations and then I informed the Earth.

I turned again me to the planet. I had employed more time than I believed thinking to as to save the pellaccia: Mars was straight in front of me, enormous.

# 17.

I quickly saw the whole procedure again; I was about to enter the ionosphere, but I owed riprogrammare the rout to reach the new apparent target: the near costonis of rock to the real target. The change of rout imposed me a different approach to the atmosphere Martian, according to an angle of a little anymore next to the tangency. In almost irrelevant measure, however. The systems suggested me speed and direction. The propulsion was still contrary to the sense of march, but by now the deceleration it was about to end: my vehicle had made its time, I had to detach surrendering the motors of it to their destiny.

Of sudden around me something changed: in the infrared gang my mean and I changed tonality.

I had entered the ionosphere. The propellers extinguished forever him. The temperature climbed in hurry, weak languages of flame surrounded me, at first timidly; then they flashed definite, caressing my body, arricciolandosi around the spigolositàs of my lower case vessel.

An unexpected show.

I didn't have problems: my body had been built for bearing this and other. Nevertheless the limbs worried me; they appeared so fragile that for some temetti to see consumed them to me from the heat.

Obviously it didn't happen. I felt me foolish.

I overcame the ionosphere I cure and except; to the infrared one the things returned normal, even if I stayed however more heat of when I was in the external space.

The moment came to detach me from the vehicle.

It was easy: in the exabyte I opened a window with the procedures and the parameters of landing; I shaped the system in an instant and that did everything from itself. I felt a push, a light sound brought me by the atmosphere Martian; then the propellers got further, malridotti since the entry in the ionosphere, and I fell in free fall entirely bound to the hold of load.

Under of me it raged the storm, now visible in the details: strips of clouds of sand torn by the violence of the wind as breadths snakes were run after, competing above the reddish ground; at times they overlapped, melting himself/herself/itself among them, other times they seemed to sideways strike him as auto in a mad and unreasonable run.

I could not do anything else other than to fall downward, aware of to fall in acceleration.

The first sporadic hazes me they hurled him against, agglomerated of grains rust escaped the chaotic motion eppur organized of the sandy tides in surface.

«Oh, God» I murmured.

I was afraid. I was not prepared to everything this.

I tried not to look assembling me on the suggestions of the exabyte. Some numerettis appeared to center screen: a countdown for the opening of the parachutes. One minute.

I was struck now everywhere; I was not in the storm yet, but some irregular gust succeeded in climbing in quota whipping me. If I/you had had a human body I would have beaten the teeth, for more than a motive.

Daylight. His/her nephews. The Earth.

Thirty seconds.

I had been a crazy person to accept. And you/they had been crazy to propose me him, that trip. Also with a big database of support I stayed aimlessly an ignorantone in the space.

It owed the mayor to be really desperate to ask to go me. And I was more conceited person and pedant of that that I believed. The power of my iron body had given me to the head, it was obvious.

Ten seconds. A window opened me before"; opening parachute" it said. I had to be me to give the ok.

The countdown concluded him on him zero but me not cliccai: the storm had not caught me yet, the telemetry could not help me with all that troubles but the instinct it told me that the surface was distant. The writing from now on to me it began to shine pulsating.

«Of accord, of accord» I murmured.

And I was inside an infernal bedlam.

For how much me was mentally prepared, the unprovided one I was taken to. I tumbled and I tumbled, incapable to see something except an uniform terrorizzante obscurity.

With an effort. cliccai.

A tear; no, more than one. I didn't see anything. Above of I hoped that the parachutes had opened, all how much.

I didn't have any perception of motion, only a sequence of messy accelerations, rotations, overturn.

How long would it be due to pass for the impact? I didn't remember anything. I looked for the information in the exabyte but I was not shiny and I was not enough quick.

The impact arrived and was hard: I struck of graze a dune sinking of a beautiful po', but I immediately bounced to the insù rotating as a crazy person. I bounced and I bounced, anchor, without seeing nothing or almost, or perhaps as soon as a glint in the middle of the maddish uproar.

Then the world extinguished him.

# 18.

I was in fetal position. Beh, in that that was a fetal position for my mind.

The four arts were folded up on myself, that is on the dusty sphere that I was, they almost wanted to protect me from the outside according to proper wish.

I was still connected to the hold of load, stretched out on a yelding surface and slightly in slope.

The storm had not passed entirely but you/he/she was grown weak. I could look around: sand anywhere.

Some irregular refolis and violent lifted to lines a beautiful dust cloud. The big one however it happened more aloft, to some about ten meters from the surface, where the winds rapidses spiraleggiavano gusts. Extemporaneous and indistinct eddies actually reached earth, immediately dissolved by breaths and parallel sudden breezes to the ground.

Me godetti the immobility for a few minutes; then I detached me from the load taking back my identity of ragnetto. I had some problems to resolve, but I everything had to know where I was. I lay on the sand to extended legs questioning the exabyte; the telemetry told that the acute hilly crest that I had used as reference was more distant of the presumable one. And I had also diverted in unexpected way: the storm was not a constant flow as that of a river.

Or I had been inclined out rout of quite a lot, or in my reasoning there had been something that made water. But at least I had a stroke of luck: the exabyte had memorized in precedence my position in comparison to the visible points of reference and you/he/she could identify the thick rocky that to lines it was glimpse among the passages of the snowstorm. I observed on the screen the place in which I was me as the maps brought him/it, calm and unreal, if compared with the situation to the moment: I was entirely on the slopes of a great sandy dune, to around eight hundred meters from where the ship of the missing was. A discreet walk.

I mentally annotated the run to do for reaching her/it. I had to move me, now. I could not go behind my load of material; I memorized his/her position, then some instant that a more intense gust of the others appeased him attended.

I saw that I would be due indeed to go down to the feet of the dune: this was easy. I closed again the legs around the body and with a pair of phalanxes diteggiai on the sand.

I began to roll, plain; then my spherical body seemed to decide him and I came down from the hillock to rout of neck, partly skidding and partly tumbling as a top. It was almost amusing, until I didn't bump a pair of rocks bouncing with some well audible tocs. Slowly I stayed me.

I was on an open space rich in pebbles of all the dimensions.

There the wind was more dessert. According to the exabyte I would have had to take a kind of well delimited channel, similar to the bed of a dried up river. And it was exactly probably this: a channel of transudation from the subsoil, as they are often seen on Mars near craters and canyon, rich of the sediments produced by the movement of materials pushed by the waters that once they flowed on the surface of the planet.

I explained my zampettes and I recomposed me; I would have had to walk enough and the thing didn't miss to worry me. I remembered too well also the admonishments of doctor Berliz.

I wasted some second to communicate my intentions to the Earth. I doubted that you/they could receive me, with the storm, but perhaps the decrease of the wind made the least prohibitive conditions than that that I believed.

«Strength Angel» I said.

I moved a footstep in before making some test to sustain in equilibrium my body. I didn't have a return from the muscles, obviously: to judge as I got by I founded me on the touch of my four hands (or feet) and on the oscillations of my visual field. The limbs communicated me a feedback, a feeling of greater tension, it is true; but I had not gotten used to fully use this new perception yet.

I sprang me on the gambettes, plain, trying to expand my senses. I mentioned a footstep; the leg stirred in before, but less than that that I waited. I was already moving the second leg and almost with this I stumbled on her/it before.

I jammed me, pervaded by that feeling of impotence that I had also known well on the Earth.

I had to have patience, but it was not easy. I was for an emergency there, distant from other helps, only; rather, he supposed that the help ditches me.

"Calm" I told me.

I retried. I brought a leg in before, I leaned well the fingers on the ground, feeling the wheats of sand that slipped you through; I brought the weight on the advanced foot, then, when I felt me sure, I used another leg lifting the foot of it. The tactile feeling of my earth skin struck me: I could warn very well the contact with minute particles, but I didn't have any thermal perception. I understood him/it: the physicians had done him he/she waits for, it is not simple to make to manage great excursions of temperature to the human ricettoris. You/they had invented qualcos'altro, that appeared rather unnatural to my eyes.

My goodness. I had become distracted and I had slipped inserting me in the sand as an ostrich.

I easily retired me on. I restarted. Before a leg, then the other; well I was firm. Now again the leg of first then the seco". eh, no, don't stumble!"

I jammed me in time opening the four arts not to fall again. I stayed me a moment. I had walked for around a meter.

Discouraging, I already felt me tired. I taken back the march, giving me a slow rhythm but to regulate; I didn't fall anymore, but I proceeded as an ill snail.

After a few minutes notaries a certain improvement: I mostly risked, I used until now now the two arts unemployed to maintain the equilibrium, and, in the worse moments, to arrest the fall pushing me to the insù. I was compassionate, but it discreetly worked. I crossed the gully, that resulted briefer than the expectation, and while I was contemplating his/her fund happened something unexpected: a ray of sun illuminated me the walk.

It didn't serve me, in reality, if not for the humor: to see around the almost clear of air and above of it did me me to feel better. I looked at forehead: there was a jump of few meters. It seemed a dry fall. I stayed me on the edge and I was amazed: for the first time in that day the sun beat on the vast depression to my feet; it was an almost rectangular area, apparently forty for hundred meters, and it smoked everywhere. Initially I didn't notice him/it: I was fixing down for appraising the entity of the jump that waited me. I looked with the whole range of the ghost, he/she is never known.

It was then that I perceived me of something indistinct that left the surface of the basin something ethereal and evanescent that salivates dispersing more and more himself/herself/itself in the clear atmosphere.

I saw the luccichìo above ditches and pits here and there, above the concavity of some rocks: dry ice. The sun struck him/it with its slim strengths; slim, but enough to produce its sublimation. They seemed ghosts shreded that they estranged from me, certainly disgusted by my way of walking.

Beh, proclamation to the gossips: I jumped of under, refolding the limbs to avoid damages. It was a slow fall, in the low gravity Martian, that didn't bring consequences.

I came to the calm ground and in the impact I produced a round concavity. I threw me standing.

I started over walking consulting the exabyte.

I saw the trace to follow on the screen; I reduced the image of it and I put her/it on one side, to be able to look at her/it in whatever moment. The position of the terrestrial ship was hooped in red. Settecentocinquanta meters, a little anymore. I slowly restarted to walk.

I was not discouraged, contrarily; I started to feel well me. I had touched the ground Martian from few and I had already had my troubles. I was getting by and I was going to find me company. After all I had my motives to be optimist. And, after all it was correct to feel himself/herself/themselves pleased.

This was a new thing that gradually budded inside of me, a sort of unusual feeling that I examined in the greatest diligence: with a certain amazement (but it was not this, the feeling in matter) and gratification (it was not even this), I taken to warn a kind of unconditional veneration (here it was this,) toward my four extremities pentadattili.

«But how beautiful' sti footsies!» I exclaimed.

I had plunged them both and both to earth to be able an instant to balance me, and I was amazed from their valuable invoice. With one I grabbed another of it, remaining in equilibrium on the others two. I would have had to feel me to risk thud, and I did an instead jumps to the insù and I reverted on the feet. better, on the closed hands to fist. Flexed the braccias and I made the bending (if I/you had stretched her I would have made the stironis), as a good gymnast. But I was brisker and creative: I was standing on an alone leg, passing the weight of the body from a limb to the other, alternatively. This made to rotate the foreman anzichenò but my sight to everything field it made the irrelevant thing; then, instead of making motion on the place, I found more comfort to lean a manopiede thirty more centimeters in there, because there was no need to fold up the limbs. I repeated him/it with the other bracciogamba, and therefore. other thirty centimeters. Oh, I had made sixty centimetruccis without effort some. What a beautiful makeup! I was good, over how pretty.

«You repeat. you repeat. you repeat.» The starteds; rather The repeated.

I imposed me a quick rhythm but I don't molest. Even if it didn't make text I would have done soon. I did and I referred (not drawn aside himself/herself/themselves of repeated coprofilia) the exercise more times and I taken to grind meters on meters; in short I did, and I did again meters on meters, and it didn't deal with repeated coprometria.

I was a wheel now, a beautiful ragnetto semirigido with the bracciogambes steccolite prepared as the rays of a rotellina; the push of the fingers was enough for contact with the ground to maintain the walk and ritoccar the trend: toward right or it misses, but since it misses her/it it missed, I could manage only. The rout was not a problem, I could repair her/it. And God knows if that were a topical moment and sorcino.

I went to the great one.

I taken to sing the hymn of Mars; then I realized me not to know him/it, not to have ever felt him/it, to never have known that one existed of it. To be certain that there was not.

What was I singing, then?

I had almost come at the end of the hymn of Mars that I had to use the limb of turn to jump a rock. Oplà!

The bracciogambes were also good dampers. I continued. I reflected: finding me on Mars I morbidly hoped that pits Tuesday. I considered us: it was a thing of which to care.

I still continued.

I had the rout on the screen, a plays stupendous; while I was overcoming obstacles and slopes I saw the serpentello that brought to the red circoletto to shorten. The sky was serene, and also me.

And I had of it well of so that: in the sea of sand there before there was a fantastic toy. Tuutto I polish. mah, burdens polverosetto was, however it was big and straight, with the paunch supported on the sand and four zampettones semischiuse to press on the surrounding rocks: the vehicle of future my companions of games.

On the anterior portion he/she saw the name: Beatrice. I read him/it (but I was not a dog that returned home) with the tail of the eye, that wagged the tail. I drew near me in religious silence: it was an obviousness, usually who observes the Beatrice of tralice it doesn't tell him/it. The central porthole reached earth, luckily: I was piccoletto me. I came there in a lightning and bussettai. Anybody. You premise three times on the plate of entry and the piastrone it silently flowed leaving that some light penetrated inside the vehicle. I entered, walking as a stool fatato; I reserved me to make only the wheel if there was need of speed.

Incappai immediately in the elastite. The invisible cloth enveloped me, extending himself/herself/itself; it was damnedly strong, it had to prevent the breathable air to go out. The adhesive surface dressed again me completely also reaching mine wipes away; the cloth lengthened, flowing through the guides that framed the porthole of access. I made a timid footstep to the inside and the cloth it detached him from my body, returning to be a tense membrane; however you/he/she had left me completely covered of the portion of elastite that had enveloped me entering.

I was inside the ship and I had not wasted a crumb of oxygen. I got torn me the residual film of back and I distractedly threw her/it in an angle: I would have polished up later. The elastite slowly contracted him a becoming they put there translucent little ball for earth, entirely similar to a damp caccola.

«Cuckoo?!» I did. Silence.

Gatton crawls I slunk away away, as a cat quatto quatto behind a rape.

I referred the wheel and runs the ship in long and in wide to my beautiful speed peering at everywhere.

«How cancelled, the shuttle is empty!» I hooted.

To go around to that way was boring, I hoped to find someone with which fruzzicare. As soon as I entered the places the lights they ignited. The principal room was the most interesting area. Circular, with a big round table to the center and the various organs of control to the walls. It was at the same time cockpit, room reunions and refectory. In the space the space is precious. I made some turn of the room to all speed, but by now my enthusiasm he was deflated. I, then I put me around four legs, thoughtful.

«I/you/they have returned again» I told tall voice.

This time however I remembered every thing of the playful discolo that I had been for some. I was almost present and aware also me in that moments. Or, at least, so it seemed me.

To let him go had been a lot of profit: it seemed that the my effervescent alter ego succeeded in governing better my hardware of me. I tried to walk here and there: somehow, of reflex I had also become enough able of it me.

I looked around me. The computers were active; they brought continuously the data on the surrounding world and the state of inside places and instrumentation. The reactor Williamson worked to the least one, correct to maintain the standard conditions of pressure and temperature in spite of the environment conditions Martian. What, besides, they were very you improve: the storm had disappeared, the sand he was ridepositando on rocks and beaches. It was cold as usual, there out, decidedly under the zero Celsius. The ship dissipated a beautiful po' of heat to the outside, even if the surfaces of the vehicle were realized with good insulating materials.

What didn't result on the screens I could draw me him in other way. I connected me to the interface of the ship and I made the download of the diagnostic one and the file of log; there were no signalled damages, on board, and this was already something.

The log contained all the meaningful events needed by the beginning mission, those of which the ship had realized, recorded with the time when you/they had happened: opening and closing portholes, lighting and turning off motor, consumption of oxygen, communications of the crew with the Earth. The real dialogues didn't appear, but there were a link that postponed to various files in audio format. There were also endless files video that you/they documented everything that that you/they had noticed the television cameras of the ship, inside and external.

«Here Angel» I transmitted to the Earth. «They are on the ship. There is no anybody. The storm has passed. I will see to understand where the crew is found.»

A normal man would have employed a lot of time to gather him: there were the recordings, gigabyte of material to be viewed and to listen to putting all together in handshaking and in chronological order. A mind seriale would have been busy a beautiful. I activated more mental operations in parallel: I began to view the contents of the log opening a window in formed text and flowing her/it rapid thanks to my fast reading; to the meantime I listened to all the recordings audio, not only those with the Earth, but also those among the astronauts themselves, both that these were found out in spatial overall the ship both that they were busy in peaceful talks to his/her inside.

The third trial concerned the video: us n'erano seven, three from external television cameras, four from those inside. If I/you had been able to use my faculties with all calm, I would have employed the same time for which trip and permanence of the personnel had lasted on Mars: different days.

But I didn't have different days. I increased at the most this way the speed of reproduction of the whole possible files, over which intelligibility would have gone to make to also be fried for me. I overcame my record: I brought forth six trials accelerated in parallel, more a seventh that had to put all the data together, to syncronize them, to order them for chronology and obviously to understand them. What a work, boys!

# 19.

The trip had decidedly been calm and routinario. A jump on the red stone to verify the fittingses of excavation, stoccaggio and transfer to the catapult, and from this to the space. The whole procedure was well automated, in reality: the extraction of the mineral ones, established once the site, it happened in elementary way.

There were the threatening robots, from the simple mind, untiring, that provided to I dig him/it and to the first selection of the material. They had discreet sensors that allowed to exclude those deprived rocks of promising contents. The material of merit was transferred on big tracked transports by the same robots, until the trucks, endowed with a least robotics conscience, realized to be to full load and they left the mine. The transports brought the rocks to the catapult, they unloaded and they returned to the mine.

Under the catapult you/he/she had been realized a plant of sieve and filtration that it used chemical trials and mechanics to isolate the substances of interest from the useless trash.

This way the materials to be sent on the Earth were already preselezionati and the ships transport, also them automatic, you/he/she would have had to bring the weight least necessary. The chemistry used in the filtration was essential and, in conformity with the urgent normative intercittadine, not polluting. The man had dirtied enough his/her planet, to do the same on Mars was seemed unacceptable to the more. This way the issued residues for the macroraffinazione were also them sent on the Earth for the inevitable recycling.

To do everything this, from quite a lot gives up moving the shuttles of load from the external space to the surface Martian: too much waste of time and energies. It was easier to shoot the material with the catapult, a long platform to form of exaggeration crossed by a gigantic cart to reaction.

The cart, in reality, it was not a cart and it didn't have wheels: it was a shuttle according to all the crismis. There was no contact between the cart and the platform: the long metallic gun carriage served only from guide for the cart, whose sensory they held the two near structures but you detach. The cart, once full, it departed with great acceleration reaching soon the diciottomilas kilometers the time; to that point the full hold opened, the cart and for inactivity the mineral one was projected aloft to the speed of escape by the planet, around five kilometers per second, not so difficult to reach thanks to the low gravity. The cart also squirted aloft it but not so much to escape the planet: the scarce aerodinamicità of the vehicle did him/it slow down for attrition with the atmosphere and to revert to the ground in few minutes. The vector then him riposizionava to the location of departure, well driven from the system of control robotico.

The shuttles transport in attended in orbit they had to catch the upcoming load and to hoist him/it on board. A delicate operation, because any load was equal to the other and the upcoming stuff in the space it often had speed, direction and different rotations.

All of this happened for well in theory, but only in theory.

In the whole procedure there were some critical points which the human being had to set attention in direct way. In the phase of excavation, the men for instance, owed every now and then supervisionare the operations, to avoid that the robots kept on demolishing even if the vein was exhausted, or to make up for to some damage. An excavation continued without critical spirit could bring to an instability of the times of the mine and collapses, that would have asked for the remaking of the infrastructures and the recovery of the threatening, stupid but expensive robots.

Other matter was the chemistry of the plant of refinement: the reagents had to periodically be provision riempiendo the siloses and the plant you/he/she had to be polishes up from the cinders, that had to be picked up and stabs in different way from the mineral one; cleaning could be automated, but the other steps owed for strength being followed by a human inspector. Of the whole filiera, the phase that was shown more delicate it was the filling of the cart. It was important that the materials were distributed in intelligent way, to according to of the physical constitution and of the quantities: you/they would have filled a spherical, closed and reusable metallic wrap, done for being lodged in the same cart.

The load was projected in the space with the wrap, so that the ships transport they were not damaged from wandering garbage. But it also needed that under the strong acceleration the everything didn't start rotating as a top: they would be also servants problems of estate of the wrap and bigger problems for the ships transport. The wrap, with his/her speed of translation, it was not a problem: the ships accelerated reaching a similar speed before grabbing him/it; a strong rotation however you/he/she could produce the rubbing between the surfaces of load and the nets of capture, in degree to bring to the white calor and then to the dismemberment both the structures.

Therefore the filling of the cart had to have followed from personal human. There was not luckily necessity of a permanent presence: the rhythm of excavation was superior a great deal in comparison to the frequency of use of the catapult. Approximately twice the year the astronauts went on Mars to witness to the operations of consignment, to provision the fittingses, to look for possible new sites of excavation to make maintenances. Others twice the year they introduced him with a more narrow team to dispatch only the controls manutentivi of routine.

This time the mission had the crew to the suit; the ship had come on Mars from a beautiful po', but the catapult had not stirred of a centimeter. The calls from the center of control earthling you/they had not had answered. The astronauts seemed disappeared. The problem of the oxygen did him pressing: only the ship contained suitable reserves, but there was not there anybody.

Yet the mission had departed with the best auspices: the crew seemed in harmony, there were not you variegate, and after the five days of trip given to study and to appraise the data sent for Mars months on the Earth, had started to also chat among them of non professional trifles. It made exception Robin; her (Robin was a woman) you/he/she was for developing a job there and you/he/she would have done that nient'altro. Every distraction could rub you in the space. It is Mars it was not different. Robin had survived to more than an accident, and not by chance. For this the colleagues held her/it in great consideration. It was the elderly member of the consignment, and it was in prevalence for his/her account.

Instead Benson was a youngster around twenty-five years of age, covered of freckles and unbearably talkative. Its thin and reddish down, the candid skin and the minute skeleton made him/it fragile of aspect. The timid kind ways didn't almost facilitate him the interaction with the men of the mission, especially with Zeld, a hairy big man like a bear siberiano and from the heavy spirit. Of low social extraction, Zeld was laconic and for the most hostile, but it knew the work. There was then Hut, an university student of long course, able and intelligent, a little motivated to the spatial trips but hopelessly to the search of a scholarship to reach the degree.

The last of the list was Lidya, a young tall and muscular woman, from the nervous and penetrating eyes. You/he/she would have made well couple with Zeld, sennonché he/she clearly despised the insufficiency of spirit of the man and his/her rough aspect. It looked at Mars as to an occasion; with that work in five years you/he/she could earn enough to settle himself/herself/themselves for the rest of the life.

Mars was nearby, by now.

The crew was in the refectory, intent in the last meal before the descent on the planet.

«We should do soon if we don't find problems» it said Benson, so much to break the silence of that supper.

«As always» it said Robin tightening himself/herself/itself in the shoulders.

The blonde hair, absurdly long for an astronaut, they fell on her shoulders in good order. Hut swallowed the bit and stuck out him on the round table.

«If we divide there, we do first» it observed. «We have to give a glance to the mine, to supply and to clean the sieve, to send the materials with the catapult and to check the other ownerships. Anymore a general look to see if all works.»

Zeld interrupted him in the beautiful mean of an undertow and lifted the head.

«Of what ownership you speak?» it said.

«Of ours and of theirs, those of the other cities. In this period there is not any other on Mars. Only us. A fortune. We can see how if the competition gets by with the extractions, even to learn something.»

«It is not a fortune» Robin joined in conversation, looking at sbieco. «If we fall all in a well there is not a dog that can help us.»

On Mars there were a lot of underground caverns and you/they were sometimes discovered in the worse way. Hut stared at her/it for a moment.

«I can go to the mine. I get by well with that damned robots. Lidya can supply the sieve and Zeld to clean him/it. Robin prepares the loads of the catapult and Benson you/he/she operates her/it. Then we gather us and we go to give a look where you believe.»

Zeld stared at Hut with resentful expression.

«Because I should clean her/it really me, that merda?» it exclaimed.

«Someone has to do him/it. You or another. I do him/it me, if you want» it coldly said Lidya.

«I don't like that people go alone around, quassù» you/he/she objected Robin.

«We hold continuously there in contact radio» it said Benson. Also he wanted to hurry her/it to him in hurry.

«No» it said Robin. «To the mine we have to go everybody. Hut will give one checked to the fittingses, but I wants that at least Zeld gives me its opinion on the state of the vein. The last time not us big n'era that, of good material.»

The suggestion of Robin was there there for being welcomed, even if with some reserve: after all it seemed reasonable. Then however Benson relaunched.

«We can reach a compromise. Two groups, one goes to the mine, the other to the catapult and the sieve. The first one with Robin, Zeld and Hut. The second with Lidya and me. We have two vehicles. For the mine you can use the tracked one, we need the dragonfly to load the siloses.»

Robin turned to the young one with evident expression: the woman had understood, as everybody, that Benson preferred to be away from Zeld. Also in Hut the big man didn't like, after all. Only Robin had not had problems with him.

Robin remained some instant to think: Zeld was smart, but it had an ugly character. There was no reason to go to look for contrasts, the personnel had to cohabit for a few other days and the mutual hostility you/he/she could be as dangerous as the indiscretion.

«For me it is all right» it said Robin.

They agreed everybody.

«I will give a glance to the vehicles» it said Hut to gratify Robin. It was that among theirs that had greater mechanical knowledges. «Always better, before using them.»

«From the more than a glance» it made Robin. «The best thing that can happen you is to stay in the desert Martian afoot, if something doesn't go.»

They started over eating with calm in silence. Benson thought about his/her house in the sweetest terrestrial country, Lidya to the money of the bonus, Hut to his/her degree, Robin to that that you/he/she could go twisted. Zeld didn't think at all.

They ended the lunch each in his/her own thoughts and they also swallowed the dishes, traditionally grocerieses, of an aromatic pasta of bread slightly digestive. Robin got up with decision.

«Strength» it said. «First we start, first we end.»

«Unff.» Benson puffed smiling. «Even a rests postprandiale.»

«We have rested five days» it made Robin.

It was as to give a kind of signal: they got up together everybody to go to raggranellare his/her own things.

«We see not to forget us the keys of the ship, this time» it said Benson snickering.

«I didn't make you a buontempone» it commented Lidya giving him a push.

Hut and Lidya went him to the two portholes of stern; each directly conducted to the fuselage of a mean of transport. Both, the terrestrial vehicle and that airplane, were so well integrated in the profile of the ship that you/they could not distinguish the lines from the outside.

Lidya winked to one of the portholes looking at Hut.

«You regret to check first the dragonfly? I need some time to organize me the restocking of the siloses. The motors immediately serve me, that damned scodellonis don't stir of a centimeter if you don't use the crane.»

It alluded to the barrels of chemical substances still fixed to double strap in the hold of the agile scout.

«Sure» it made Hut. «What you say? Will it make her/it Benson to make the dear Zeld explode?»

Lidya tightened him in the shoulders with the expressionless face.

«If you don't do him/it first you» it said her. «You see not to put you in the troubles. Zeld doesn't have sense of the humor.»

«It doesn't have sense and enough.»

«Robin says that a true miner is smart. If it tells him/it her.»

«Already» Hut nodded. «Robin always knows all.»

«And they say of us women. Do you want to give you to do or to gossip?»

«To gossip. But I will give a glance to your motor.»

They opened the porthole and they entered the cabin of the dragonfly. The lights ignited. Hut sat him to the commands.

«I will make a pair of tests to start. You can breathe me on the neck for a few minutes, or to make other things.»

Lidya stretched the lips but it didn't say anything: that man had been talkative then until, but here that you/he/she did him to the sudden indisponente.

«Control the hold. From when we are landed, I have not done him yet» it said then the woman.

«Good.»

Crossed Lidya the narrow corridor and takings to fumble with the material set to the walls.

In the room I check Robin, Zeld and Benson they studied the maps of the mine and the area of the catapult. You/they had made him about ten times, on the Earth, but it now dealt with going indeed there.

The maps surrounded the presents to trecentosessanta degrees, you project in the air with notable resolution. Robin wore of the interactive gloves and with these you/he/she flowed her moving as soon as the hands, zoomed the particular ones of greater interest and returned to the general vision. You brought to the entry of the mine and it crossed the corridors of it as flying, gone down more in depth, up to the point in which the excavations had come in the precedent trip. Then it continued showing the progress that had been done in that months. It lifted his/her point of view, dipping himself/herself/itself in the rock soprastante: for some second it was not perceived but a dark shade, then six eyes reached the surface Martian and they went beyond her/it; they looked down, fixing a three-dimensional section of the caverns.

«Impressive» it said Benson, as if you/he/she had observed him for the first time. «I dig him/it it is very wide.»

«No. Only the mine» it said Robin. «The burrows were there already. Mars is a kind of cheese with the holes. The robots are limited to lengthen the tunnels.»

«How you can see from here the recent excavations?» he/she asked Zeld.

«New television cameras» it made Robin. «I am around and in the mine. I am connected with all of them, they already integrate the data in my possession with those of the moment.»

«We see from near the new stones» it said Zeld.

Robin moved downward the indexes; they returned inside a tunnel, where a robot miner was digging. Robin immediately went out from there: too dust, could not see anything. They entered another burrow and they crossed him/it up to the extremity. The last television camera showed the alive front of I dig him/it. There was slightly veined rock and shattered in more points.

The color was changing and made to curl the nose to Zeld.

«Mah» it said the man, the non trimmed cheek noisily scratching himself/herself/itself. «I have to give nearby a look from. It promises badly, however.»

«Look?» it made Benson, reagent as a ferret. «The sensors are not enough?»

«Sensory?» Zeld snarled slowly. «You don't know about thing you speak, boy. The sensors help, but you have to take her in hand, these rocks, to be able to say something.»

«Of accord» it said Robin extinguishing the video. It unthread the gloves and it put back them with attention in a plastic lowboy. «Zeld and I are ready. Benson, will be better that harbors your stuff on the dragonfly, otherwise Lidya allows here yourself.»

The young one if it didn't do him/it say twice. It disappeared in an instant.

Zeld raced to take his/her baggage and the overall, Robin went to his/her box to flow the list of the duties once more. The lights perimetralis of the ship ignited together all illuminating the surrounding sands of a strong white-blue light, whose halo reached quite a lot meters of distance.

Sporadic gusts created extemporaneous figures of united corpuscolari that veiled to lines the desert landscape; but there was no anybody to observe: only the tools of the ship annotated, they recorded and they stored terabyte of information, that ended with the being crowded in some secondary memory and then forgotten.

# 20.

It was as if the faucis of a gigantic invisible monster had nibbled the ship: first there was the big vehicle from the surface uniform, then two wide slices detached, almost contemporarily.

The tracked one was the first one; oscillating and coughing slightly in the wiped away air the mean separated him from the ship and it climbed a pair of dunes under the lights projected by the immovable vessel. When you/he/she had gotten further enough turned on his/her own lighthouses of position: small but numerous poliedris studded the mean earthling, throwing around deep lightnings and before. The sound of the motor was light but the tracked one was great. The box, proper for to comfortably receive four people, you/he/she was screened by the radiations and by the worse bumps, the system trainante had hinged apiece on three ample wheels some four sides; every wheel dragged thick tracks endowed with hooks. To the necessity the hooks could have lengthened becoming some long daggers twisted by to plunge in the most untrustworthy grounds.

There was no necessity to steer: the twelve wheels traenti and independent among them they made the manoeuvre of rotation of aces superfluous or cut-off; this reduced the probability of mechanical damages.

The only one, further possible movement, was the lifting of every wheel, so that to avoid that, in case of breakdowns or if the mean proceeded in perpendicular direction to the line of march of the same wheel, this ended up serving as brake to the vehicle.

The tracked one had estranged of about ten meters from the ship, when on this a long black crack appeared; it slowly widened, then another piece of the hull separated him and gradually changed geometry: he/she was seen first the fuselage, with two tiled and immovable figures to the place of guide, therefore a portion of structure rotated and skidded above the fuselage, it seemed to swell himself/herself/themselves and they went out from there three great gilded nozzles; these started to climb in vertical, few to few, estranging himself/herself/itself from the fuselage, I suspended to a telescopic pylon that reached a dozen of meters high. The nozzles were tilted of quarantacinque degrees in comparison to the ground and radially prepared in comparison to the axle of the pylon. When they ignited the motors, the nozzles sputtered a halo of vapor and the paradoxical body of the dragonfly it began to take quota; the fuselage, endowed with roller skate and wheels, it was the lowest part of the vehicle; aloft the nozzles didn't upset there in some way the ease of the occupants, neither how much it was under of them, but the eccentric form of the mean exposed to the gusts, that could produce insidious oscillations. The dragonfly also had a big merit: if the motors had surrendered the occupants you/they would have struck the ground from a reduced quota and the dragonfly you/he/she would be fallen and been standing, with the nozzles aloft because of the particularly low position of the baricentro of the vehicle. Impossibility to overturn himself/herself/themselves was a desirable factor, on Mars; in that way the system propulsivo could not damage him against the rocks or to get dirty himself/herself/themselves of sand.

Everything, however, the advantages didn't compensate the troubles in case of sudden refoli: the project of the dragonfly had been abandoned, that was the last existing sample with good peace of the crew that would have had to use him/it up to its rottamazione.

Dragonfly and tracked they estranged in different directions from the ship proceeding subrate.

«Here dragonfly» it said Lidya. «First control, everything well.»

«Here Robin» it said the pilot of the tracked one. «Also our checks are on the green. We proceed to destination. Our time of arrival: four minutes. Let's keep in touch. Every ten minutes.»

«His/her mother is us I set» you/he/she commented Benson.

Lidya ignored him/it.

«Here Lidya. Time of arrival anticipated three minutes and ten seconds.»

The point of landing of the ship had been select in base to the equidistanza from the installations of ownership of New Sealon, over that to the protection from the bad weather thanks to tall rocks.

The sandy fund made the movimentazione of the vehicles sure and reduced the probability of bumps with wandering pebbles.

The tracked one devoured the dunes in impressive way; under the guide of experienced hands it avoided rocks and it grinded impietosamente the minute rubble, leaving wide stripes complicated on the surface Martian.

The dragonfly diverted, crossing a deprived gully of concretions lapidee; you/he/she seemed of sorvolare a long calm river. The gully continued for three hundred meters, then it continued in the wrong direction; Lidya got up of a pair of meters, bringing himself/herself/itself to a quota than no more than five meters in everything, it jumped the edge of the gully and it lowered for caressing the scabrous surface of a hold depression. The dragonfly roared again, to follow the line of the ground in ascent: overcome an ample jagged hill Lidya you/he/she brought the vehicle in low. In front of them there was a vast level area; the two astronauts contemplated the game forms of the catapult, four hundred more meters before. The dragonfly lowered to few more than a meter from the ground, docilely swinging. It seemed a great bottle from the slender too neck.

Benson you have to check the impulse to aim the feet: they were so low that seemed him to feel the sand inside the shoes.

The aircraft docilely slipped toward the station of sieve, that began now only to see him: it was a predominantly underground installation, both to escape the instrumentation to the insolences of the climate Martian, both to facilitate the phase of unloading of the materials from the trucks, that could confine to throw the mineral one in an ample conic tub to level of the ground.

The dragonfly was deposited without too attention on the reddish sand, to motor already practically out. The keel of the mean, strong as that of a ship rompighiaccio, he made road between dusts and stones without so many compliments. The nozzles were immediately closed as umbrellas to the capolinare of the sun: once extinguished the motors, the open nozzles were good solo to take dust. The telescopic pylon gradually lowered, until almost to disappear in the capacious back of the aircraft.

«Arrived» it said Benson.

Lidya checked his/her own overall and his, therefore it went out on the ground Martian walking with caution. Benson followed her/it, uncertain on the to make himself/herself/themselves.

«We go to give a glance to the sieve, everything» it said Lidya. «I want to see if the fittingses work.»

The two slowly brought him toward the entry, a well shut dirty hatch. The television cameras of the dragonfly recorded the opening of it, then they observed the entry of the two earthlings in the station.

And these were the last data accumulated in the computers of the ship riguardanti Benson and Lidya. Of the two there was not more trace, as volatilizzatis were him in the nothing.

Hut replaced Robin with the guide of the tracked one, on suggestion of the same woman; the youth was learning in hurry, even if it was not still skilled as her. Zeld swung on and down to the irregular rhythm of dunes and curves, observing a tiny sun that began his/her descent toward the horizon Martian. That sballottiis didn't bother him. It was found very more to his/her ease there that on the Earth. Down there life was done too complicated; nobody almost appreciated anymore the good and healthy job manual, the cars they had to replace the man in all the possible works. He/she knew very well not to like to anybody on the Earth. And even on Mars. However Robin showed to appreciate his/her competence, and not only that: Zeld loved Mars, he/she saw him/it beautiful, and Robin understood him/it. The other ones were so assembled on their affairs that you/they lived only of economic perspectives, figures and accounts. They were not there never.

The man was received: Hut had been smart, you/he/she was already parking in the square in front of the shelters of the mine. The tracked one skidded and it oscillated with impetuousness, then it appeased him gradually arresting himself/herself/itself, correct in front of the entry of the ample cavern. There was a robot miner that you/he/she was going out with his/her walk of it caracollante: it was a stupid car, that understood only elementary events. It had an imposing aspect, however: it was tall two meters and a half, showily metallic, with strong legs trattrici and clogs with four thick fingers distributed around the feet to give stability. The braccias were four, two for side, engaged in a toothed ferrule that acted from shoulder and that you/he/she could bring in before the limb with the most proper characteristics. The right braccias were demolitrici: one finished with the pointed extremity of a pneumatic hammer, the other one was a manual spicconatore from the a little reassuring air. The left braccias were cleaning; there was the limb with a wide and versatile bucket and that with a cylinder aspirator for the sands: a small hole to the height of the elbow served to expel to high speed how much ingluviato, freeing the outskirtses from thin particles and corpuscles.

The robot had features umanoidi, but only vaguely: the legs had shown for a long time their value in the obstructed burrows and ruined of the mine; the head was how much more remote from a human face: a box, a cube of entangled sensors, not very sophisticated, thesis to allow the camminamento on the surface Martian and the prudent incision of the rocks.

The robot directed him to one of the huts. It opened him. It inserted the superior limbs, all and four inside a form of maintenance. It was a kind of semitransparent large case; you/he/she could glimpse the mess of tools and servomechanisms. From inside the large case the sound of an in operation avvitatore originated; the pneumatic hammer, showily deformed, you/he/she was surrounded from regulating elettromeccanici that got off him/it and they replaced him/it with a new piece. The robot attended the green light from the form, then resumptions the walk toward the mine, perfectly funzionante.

The astronauts followed the operation with gratification, then they verified the state of their spatial overall and they went down from the tracked one.

«I don't see truck» it observed Hut.

«You don't owe, if the drawn out material has not reached the quota yet» it said Robin. «They have nearby here their zone parking lot. Until they don't serve it is well that is out of the feet.»

Hut looked at her/it without understanding, verifying again the helmet. It was a vice of the inexperienced persons: the phobia for the radiations that continually invested the planet was a constant worry. There was not the terrestrial atmosphere to protect them from the solar wind but the weak atmosphere Martian: nevertheless, the quality of their equipment made only the adverse environment conditions a bother. Robin smiled, but you/he/she kept silent: she had also done so the first times.

«The threatening robots are dull» he/she explained. «They don't know how to manage complicated situations.»

«Ah, understands» it said Hut.

Him he intended of mechanical bruta, in the group it was Robin the experienced one of logic robotics.

«Let's move us» it spurred Zeld. «I want to see those rocks.»

The astronauts took the cavern, they overcame three turns and they met a robot intent in his/her work: with the bucket you/he/she was freeing the passage to favor the transit of workers and a halves. Now the entry to the mine was not more visible; if it were everywhere for the shed bright bastoncellis the three you/they would be found again in complete obscurity.

Hut observed the fluid movements of the robot and continued over; later you/he/she would have given him a very careful look, but to glimpse it didn't seem it had functional problems.

The youth wanted to follow the two elderly colleagues to learn the more possible. The others didn't have anything to repeat.

Zeld drove the line: it knew very well the road, the new front of excavation had launched him himself some months before. It followed Robin, it sues as always to observe every thing you/he/she could represent a trap; therefore Hut came.

The lights drew their oscillating outlines on the rocks sbreccati of the walls.

As soon as the careful eyes of numerous sensors proceeded they noticed them following them in their moves.

The astronauts continued walking for two minutes, they met a second robot, intent to remove other stones from the path; they found again from now on then him to a wall semioscura: the front.

Zeld caressed with attention the flaked rock, taken among the hands guantate the biggest fragments and it studied them with attention, ignoring completely his/her own equipment in the backpack; there were some good sensors, there inside, but experience told him that the eye of the man was well other thing.

«The vein is exhausted» concluded.

Zeld felt from the radio that Robin.

«I suspected him/it» it said the woman. «We will have to close the mine.»

«Thing? Cannot we open a new front?» he/she asked Hut.

Zeld stared at him/it for an instant; through the reflexes of the helmet Hut could not decipher the expression of it.

«He is not able» it said Zeld. «We have already tried in all the directions. This area has almost been exploited to the one hundred percent. To go over it would be antieconomic.»

«New Sealon has another concession, on Mars» he/she explained Robin. «We will have to look for elsewhere, that's all. Meanwhile we end our job. We close the mine, dismettiamo the robots and the equipments in the shelters. Lidya and Benson provvederanno to use the catapult to empty the station of sieve. We will have to bring down here the ship to load everything how much and then to go to the catapult.»

«To do what?» he/she asked Hut.

«To dismantle every transportable thing. We are earned three days of extra job there» it said Zeld.

«Lidya, feels me? Our plans are some changed. Lidya?» he/she called Robin operating the amplifier.

To chat among the presents in mine not us n'era need but the others two were brought out, especially considering that there were thick walls of rock to separate her/it from the outside. The woman attended an instant.

«Lidya, can Benson, feel me?» he/she insisted.

«Benson, race of soft.» it made Hut. «We are busy, down here.»

«Perhaps the mine. we have never gone down I know much» it said Zeld.

Robin looked at him/it sceptic.

«Of accord» it admitted then. «It is possible. Now. The organize to link I know that the systems of the mines asks control to the room on the ship to bounce my communication to the overall of Lidya and Benson. And vice versa.»

This way saying, Robin took to briskly work on the right polsiera of the overall. It was a cinch, even if unusual.

«Lidya, Benson?» it made then Robin.

When the answer came, the three was alarmed: white noise, as if the others didn't have the radio anymore funzionante.

«Something has happened» concluded Robin.

Hut got excited a second, then smiled.

«You/they will have put as us» it suggested the young one. «But in a place I deprive of sensors.»

«No» it said Zeld, dry. «The station of sieve doesn't have environmental sensors, it is true, but he/she is known that the radios work very well there.»

«Or you/they have extinguished her, or they are broken» it said then Hut.

«Exact» it approved Robin. «We have to go down there. In hurry. I have an ugly presentiment.»

A sudden noise covered their chatters: one of the robots had started to hammer backer furiously a wall some meters.

«What devil happens?» it thundered Zeld.

Hut looked at him/it without understanding; for him it was at work only a robot. Then the young one turned him to Robin and he worried: you/he/she had never seen the astronaut frightened, but now the expression of the woman was also evident through the pale reflexes of the helmet.

«What happens?» it made echo Hut.

Robin looked around, looking for a street of escape.

«The robot» it said the woman. «If it continues he/she will kill us.»

«Thing?» it shouted Hut overhanging the noise of the hits.

Around the walls seemed there to wave, some pebble rolled verse of them. One went to stay himself/herself/themselves close to the foot of Hut, that instinctively withdrew him.

«Impossible» it murmured Zeld.

«The robots are programmed for not demolishing, if there are us. Zeld is right. It is impossible» it said Robin.

«He/she doesn't perhaps know what we are here» it screamed Hut.

«With all these sensors?» it howled of rhyming Zeld.

«Perhaps. he/she doesn't succeed in serving him of it.»

Shook Zeld the capoccione.

«Safety protocol. If it were so the robot would go to the maintenance. To the worse it would be disabled alone.»

«And then?»

«Someone has him riprogrammato» Robin exclaimed.

Hut stared at her/it without understanding.

«To kill us» concluded Zeld.

Hut opened wide the eyes.

The robot kept on working ignoring completely the presence of the human beings. As soon as it destroyed, widening the tunnel, it slowly advanced: now some pebble squirted on the wall close to Zeld. If you/he/she had struck the man, nothing would not be happened, but only because the robot was far still. The stones arrived until there only after having completed a lot of rebounds.

«We wait that the robot stops him and we takes the run. We will go out from here before you restart» it suggested Zeld.

«He won't stop» it said Robin.

«You listen better» it howled Zeld, with the more head next to the dusty wall.

The other ones included to the flight: it was not only the robot to work. They felt there other more hits in, toward the exit of the mine. If you/they were escaped that robots, you/they would have met another of it finding himself/herself/itself among two fires: with their power the robots projected the stones to great speed. The overall were strong, but a sharp splinter was able you opened a breach. To that point it was the end. You/he/she could hardly be reached the congelation, even if around the temperature was there on the less one hundred degrees Celsius, because death came first for asphyxia.

And perhaps other robots were at work, still over.

«It doesn't seem me that we have put well» it said Hut.

«We contrive something. In hurry» it said Zeld with colorless voice.

«Robot» it thoughtfully said Robin. «They are stupid. They will have a stupid rescheduling. They know that we are here, even if they don't directly see now us. It is thanks to the sensors that are around there. That's why they work.»

The three looked around him: there were everywhere television cameras, in the burrows, suspended to the ceilings; sensory infrared and who knows of what other kind.

«If we break them, they won't give signal» it observed Robin.

Taken a big stone and it demolished the two television cameras of the vain one whose were found. Zeld imitated her/it, eliminating three scatolottis antennuti with a stroke and some spark, without not even knowing what they were. It was easy, in reality; it was yes armored stuff, done on purpose for withstanding the bumps of the wandering pietrame. But there was always, on the back, in the points less statements, the possibility to access the vital elements of the equipment for the normal maintenance. In ten seconds among all the suspended stuff of entire the lamps had remained only. The robots stopped destroying.

«Fantastic» it whispered Zeld.

«There is no need to talk to low voice. The robots have not heard. If they don't see us, recognizing us as human, you/they cannot know that we are here» it said Hut.

«Uhm» it added however, immediately later. «Then they will perhaps restart to break really for this. It is their job.»

«If you/they have not done him till now, they won't do him/it more» it said Robin. «Who riprogrammati has them you/he/she has integrally replaced surely their software. Easier and sure. The robots don't have any function anymore whether not to destroy us.»

«Logical» it said Zeld.

Hut he was relaxing, but Robin didn't allow him him.

«We are not at all out of it. If we stay here, among a few times we will remain without oxygen, and if we try to slink away out.»

«. the robot catches us» it finished Zeld.

Robin looked at him/it smiling.

«You have seen too many old films. The robot is not made for catching anybody. It is slow and it doesn't have the proper physical structure. No. If that robots see us, it limits him to take back the demolition. Very more lethal.»

«Because it doesn't now continue also? It has to know for strength that we are here» churches Hut.

«The robot if he/she doesn't remember him/it. Planners faciloni. The sensors are submitted to that have demolished and to those on the body of the robot. His/her eyes. According to them it was not necessary to equip the robots with memory. And it seems me that they were not wrong. Even if we are out now sight we are in trap however.»

«Of accord, they have been good. It will seem an accident, even. Now we look for of us to be good» it spurred Hut.

Zeld began an accurate examination of the walls: the unexpected excavations had perhaps disclosed a passage how first it didn't exist, a small breach as soon as to force. Hut included and started lending him a hand. Robin knelt and analyzed the ground; you/he/she tried to remember something, something of far in the time, when she was still a pivella and that mine you/he/she was young.

«The line of the oxygen.» it murmured.

«Thing?» they said in unison the two men.

«Nothing. I was remembering.»

Robin looked around, then been said of the fool.

«There is a possibility. Not great, but there is» it said. «Once the threatening human beings. To the beginning. The pneumatic hammers were not used for the rocks, obviously, but chemical solvents. He/she wanted us a beautiful po' and it cost. It was also polluting. However it worked well. The men worked for times, but you/they could not bear the weight of the respirator with his/her ballast of oxygen. A duct was realized buried that you/he/she was lengthened as soon as the mine he expanded. Every tot meters there were some bocchettonis where they connected the respirators. Continuing the excavations, the men detached him from a point and they were connected more before.»

«Old stuff. And it is not certain here» it observed Zeld.

«True» it admitted Robin. «This is recent zone. But they still have to be of the points in which the line has remained there. The first areas of excavation.»

«Perhaps» it said Zeld. «But it won't work. You/he/she has not been used for years.»

«Yes. But I am certain that it works, instead. The line was never removed, too much job. And not even the generator of oxygen. It has to be in some shelters, there out.»

«They won't have more him supplied» it objected Hut.

«Nonsense. The generator is autonomous. The oxygen is present in the atmosphere Martian, all it takes is extracting him/it. The generator did this way. Not you understand: the maintenance is automated everywhere. The cars don't understand that a thing is useless, they keep on managing her/it, even if you/he/she is not used anymore.»

«Unless someone doesn't tell him him» it observed Zeld.

«You/they have not done him. From what I remember me any shelter you/he/she has ever been dismesso. It is more economic to leave the things as they are; the small reactor Williamson that this field feeds is able to make to work him/it for thousand of years.»

The two men I will be dictated a rapid glance.

«Let's try us» it said Zeld.

«Yes» it made Hut.

Robin grabbed the polsiera and connected him with the database of the ship. In few second the polsiera projected in the air an image of the mine of some years before; the most ancient tunnels recognized well him, the ramifications were reduced and they missed whole portions well notes to all and three.

«Here are the old galleries» it said Robin. «It is here that it has to be us the line oxygen.»

«Qual is the more point next to us?» he/she asked Hut.

Robin learned for well the course of the burrows; the things you/he/she was not easy you/they were changed enormously in few years.

«There are» it told the end. «But we will have to overcome that robots. You look.»

Robin put in evidence the run to do on the suspended scheme in the middle of them. There were two curves and a pair of rectilinear, in everything centoventi meters.

«Centoventi meters» it said Zeld. «Under the sassaiola.»

«Hut» it said Robin. «How long it employs us a robot to start over hammering? After having taken the decision to do him/it, I intend.»

The young one thought of us on.

«Be', it everything has to bow himself/herself/themselves. It supports the hammer against the rock. It makes to depart the point. The hammer immediately is not to the maximum power, there would be a strong tide of I sprout and the feeder would suffer some.»

«How much?»

«Four seconds, perhaps more.»

«Four seconds. Pochino» he/she ascertained Zeld. «The robot is behind this curve. It needs to overcome the curve, to overcome the robot and also the curve that follows, to put on to the sure one. At least twelve seconds. Do you agree?»

The other ones nodded.

«Let's distract him/it» it said Hut.

«How?» he/she asked Zeld.

Hut tightened him in the shoulders.

«We cannot distract him/it, but we can blind him/it» it said the woman. «The lights here around. We have saved her but we had to also destroy them. Without lights and without external sensors with which to communicate the robot cannot see us.»

«The robots see how us, in our same ghost» it said Hut. «If we don't see us we, don't see them to us. But to that it serves to eliminate these lights? We have to break see you later here all those from the robot, to do complete dark. And to also break all the remained sensors, until and over the robot.»

«There are not sensory around that robots, have you noticed him? And it doesn't serve the complete dark» it said Robin. «It is not enough but the robot I/you/he/she see us, it also owes us to recognize as human. Does The physical form, understand? Legs, braccia. if he/she sees badly us, it recognizes badly us.»

«Clear» it said Zeld. «Robin, salt me on the shoulders.»

The woman stared at him/it without understanding; then you/he/she lifted the eyes and she saw the metallic canaletta that raced to three meters high, suspended to the ceiling: from this they were issued other smaller canalette, each continued up to a lamp to bastoncello. Zeld crouched him and Robin, clumsily because of the overall, it turned him to the shoulders and him he/she sat astride him above; the man got up, thanking the low gravity of Mars. The head of Robin was really under the principal canaletta, now. The woman lengthened the hands, grabbing her/it, and you/he/she tried to tear her/it from the rock. The canaletta resistette. Hut passed her a long splinter lapidea and Robin it inserted her/it to work between the metallic platform and the ceiling; it struck the base of the wedge with strength: the canaletta didn't even deform him, but the wedge that held back her/it to the wall grew loose. Robin repeated the operation until the metal you/he/she lowered of five centimeters. Over, however, he/she didn't want to go. Robin allowed to lose the splinter and grabbed on to the canaletta with both the hands, inserting the fingers in the intercapedine that had created. You threw on weight, leaving the shoulders of Zeld, then takings to hang pushing, with the feet to eighty centimeters from the floor.

You raised almost touching the ceiling with the helmet, then he allowed to go with the whole weight of the body trying to make to surrender the wedge.

«Be', curse, lend me a hand!» Robin exclaimed, with the fiatone.

Hut grabbed her feet and started to throw downward; to the third tear the wedge cedette, the canaletta fell on the head of Robin and Robin it fell on the head of Hut.

«Everything well?» he/she asked Zeld.

It helped the two to rise again himself/herself/themselves. The canaletta was folded up, the terminal part was fallen down for a line of a pair of meters and the extremity now grazed the ground oscillating. The rest of the duct was still hung to the ceiling.

Zeld extracted the cables of it and frayed them with the help of a thin pietruzza. Without so many histories it put in short the conductors. The lights of the room extinguished him, but those over the curve stayed turned on.

«Merda» it said the man.

«Good idea» it said Robin. «You/they would have had to go off all of himself/herself/themselves, the lights.»

«They have to be protected lines from the overloads. Segment for segment. The effect of the short one stays located to an alone segment. But it doesn't care» it commented Zeld.

The man knelt, then you/he/she made a leap: despite the overall you/he/she hindered him/it, he succeeded in jumping up to the ceiling, three earth meters; you/he/she grabbed the canaletta in the point of folding, where possible to grab well him was, and you/he/she reverted taking to throw with energy, arching the backs to increase the intensity of I strive him/it. A second wedge cedette and a bystander: other four meters of canaletta distorted him folding up himself/herself/itself toward the floor. Two lights to the beginning of the first one it bends they extinguished him: the cables that brought to those lamps from the duct had been torn. Over the channel it followed the curve, it passed above the robot and then it made the second curve. Zeld was flattened against the wall and crossed the curve until, with other two footsteps, you/he/she would not have been in front of the robot.

«Enough, Zeld» Hut admonished.

Zeld jumped again, it grabbed the canaletta in the point of inflexion and it repeated the manoeuvre. It scurried about, it premises even a foot against the ceiling in acrobatic laying. The duct cedette anchor, with a left sound. Another couple of wedges unthread him from the wall and four meters channel they were deformed of ugly, sadly hanging. Three lights extinguished him, those around the robot. By instinct the astronauts held back the breath a reaction waiting himself/herself/itself from the automaton, that didn't obviously come. Robin peered at rapid over the wall of rock: the robot was still immovable, in the semi-obscurity. You spin voters they swung as stars filanti frustrated around the iron monster.

«Good» it said Robin. «We will do to turn, now.»

«How?» it objected Hut. «We have to go next to the robot to keep on tearing.»

The canaletta was true it hung from a point to around a meter from the robot and it was there that you/he/she had to be grabs and pushed, to hope to get something.

But Hut was beautifully ignored.

«He/she remembers, four seconds» it said Zeld breathing in worry.

Robin nodded and him taken his/her times. Another peered at fleeting to the threads and the robot. Then it went off. It seemed to everybody that it walked in the molasses, from how much the sense of urgency permeated the earthlings; the woman overcame the curve and made a single leap, amazing. The experience of so many missions on Mars and a good physical form they paid: Robin grabbed to the flight the canaletta, little bottom the point of inflexion, was curved throwing and twisting himself/herself/itself as a monkey, but nothing didn't happen.

«Now!» it howled someone.

Robin fell to the ground, in time to see the robot stir: a big mechanical arm brought him on the ground and while the woman hocked him in the first falcade, the hammer waved. The curve was there, near. It is distant. Robin jumped again. The hammer sent forth a low rhombus a crackling. Robin landed and still jumped twisting the trunk to turn. The first pebbles skipped about while Robin put to the sure one, draws back from the companions. The robot worked for a pair of seconds, then he interrupted: he/she didn't see Robin anymore. There were no human beings in the galleries.

«It is my turn» it said Hut.

Robin appropriated his shoulder.

«No. You are smart, but not enough. It takes time to learn to stir well quassù. Don't pick her/it up.»

Hut not if the takings at all; in a moment of incoherence you/he/she was offered, but if reformed n'era immediately. Robin was right.

«I don't surrender at all me» it added the woman.

It inhaled deeply, then it repeated the sequence of the operations in amazing way: gesture for gesture referred same footsteps, jumps and contortions. This time it felt him a crack and fifty-fifty vaulting Robin it found again him to earth with the canaletta in hand: other meters of canaletta were fallen, but now she was in danger. He/she jumped standing as a cat and it threw him over the curve while the robot started over doing noise. Some pebble reached the stivalone of Zeld.

The pneumatic hammer kept silent.

«We cannot do more» it said Zeld. «The canaletta has gone, up to the entrance of the second curve. Now the robot is to the dark.»

Hut said a rapid glance. It twisted the mouth.

«There is light, in the corridor that follows, and there are other sensors. But above all light. The reflexes arrive until here.»

It was true. Now that the three human he was getting used to the dark, they made him account that obscurity was not complete. They his/her own bodies and, looking over the first curve the body of the robot. After the automaton, the light did him more intense and to the entrance of the following curve the walls were decidedly well you illuminate.

«We try» it said Robin.

Before the other ones could beat the woman it was set to the wall and takings to cross gropingly her. You hocked in the dry turn, slowly, until you/he/she could not directly observe the robot in front of her.

«What devil.» Zeld shouted, taken of surprise.

«I have to do him/it me» it said Robin. «You know him/it. I will go plain. The robot recognizes us for the form, but also for the movement. Its visual field is of trecentosessanta degrees, therefore it needs to be cautious, even if him he is to the shoulders.»

«It is silent» it said Zeld. «You pay her/it to me, this. He/she thinks only now about to get by her/it.»

The woman snickered. It walked as a sloth, with the hands it rubbed against the rock and meanwhile it looked at sottecchi the robot; it drew near nearby him so much from trovarglisi: if he had now individualized her, for her you/he/she would have been the end. It continued, trying to set him to the wall to escape to the reflex of the light of the little corridor over. It was successful, but to the beginning of the following turn you/he/she could not avoid the shines. Ten centimeters still and its arm would have reverberated the first clear lights of the illuminated portion.

«This point» it said Robin the tense voice. «This is the critical point. From here it is worthwhile to spin as a rocket.»

It exactly did that: it jumped folding up the body from a side, concerned on a foot and been said a new push in before. The robot started to hammer destroying and sprinkling everywhere stones. But Robin was to the sure one, in the little corridor over.

The robot kept on hammering. It didn't stop anymore.

«Planners dilettantes» it said Robin. «I/you/they are brought out, by now.»

Nobody had felt her with that noise.

«Robin!» he/she called Hut.

«I am well. For a hair.»

«Because it doesn't stop?» he/she asked Zeld.

«The sensors here in the tunnel. They notice me» it said Robin.

«Be', break them» it said Zeld.

«No» Robin answered. «This time they help us. If the robot keeps on shattering, it draws near to you and it estranges from the light. I will break all the sensors except one. Put you more distant possible from the robot and tell me when the things begin to make himself/herself/themselves risky.»

«Understands» it said Hut.

The two men inserted him in the more distant dark angle and they remained to listen to the industrious noise of the destroyer one. After few minutes, the first stones began to reach the wall on which you/they were supported. Shortly the sassaiola did him worrisome.

«Now» it said Hut.

The sound of the last sensor that broke him came until there.

The robot stopped shouting. Zeld lengthened the neck to understand where the robot had arrived: it was nearby there, immediately behind the angle.

They were found in full obscurity, now. One for time, the astronauts crawled along the wall, toward the light, and they made the same run of Robin; now however it was simpler a great deal: when the robot started over demolishing the man it was already distant and the risks were reduced. The three was found again in safe in the illuminated corridor. Two television cameras and three sensors of proximity dangled without life from their supports. They were out sight of the robots, for the time being. They threw the breath.

«Well» it said Robin. «We see our map again.»

The woman projected the ancient scheme of galleries pointing out with a finger the point in which you/they were found: an indefinite zone, not distant from an old line that lengthened for about ten meters and that then you/he/she had been abandoned for the exhaustion of the vein.

«It is near» it said Zeld.

They put on in walk along the gallery, they made a curve and they followed a rectilinear that approached them to the exit. After all to that rectilinear there was a robot: he/she saw them to distance, with his/her own eyes, and it started to hammer as a madman. The three stopped him observing him/it.

«From there him it doesn't pass» it said Hut.

«Already» it made Zeld. «There is no way of drawing near without making to be seen. For an instant I had hoped to be able to reach the exit.»

«We reach the oxygen, meanwhile» it said Robin. «For this there is no need to climb over that robots, there is to the right here a turn, and then we find again there in the old zone.»

The astronauts slowly walked leaving the automaton to his/her job, they turned to the right after few meters and they found again him in a narrow gut illuminated ache. There was a small television camera, that was suffered disemboweled. The robot stopped working. Robin fixed for earth touching and moving stones and sand.

«Here it is!» it exulted.

A channel of uncertain invoice raced subsoil appearing on the surface every now and then from the ground. Zeld touched him/it with the hand guantata and polished up him/it crossing him/it for different meters, until it didn't finger something more consistent: four bocchettonis put to cross.

The three looked him.

«Be'» it commented Hut smiling. «Even four. There is from scialare.»

It extracted the extremity of his/her own respirator from the overall and it connected him with a well audible clang to one of the bocchettonis. The sudden depression operated a presser remote and new oxygen it entered the overall of the man.

«It works!» it shouted Hut, incredulous.

The others imitated him/it. They sat to earth and they remained in silence for quite a lot minutes. They were safe, for the time being. They leaned the shoulders against the wall. They reflected, each for really account.

«There is the matter of that robots, boys» it told the sudden Hut.

Laughed Zeld.

«Inexperienced person. I knew that you would have spoken for first.»

Hut not if the takings; smiled in turn.

«Of accord, of accord. What I/you/he/she speak the veteran. How do you think about get by now?»

Zeld rippled the forehead.

«We can wait only for the paramedics.»

«Which assisted?»

«Those that I call me now» it said Zeld.

It operated the polsiera and it connected him to the ship. It tried to realize a bridge with the Earth, but the transmitter of long distance of the ship didn't want to work. Robin tried in turn, without success.

«Clear» concluded the woman. «You/they have cut out us.»

«Who?» it said Hut.

«Those that have riprogrammato the robots, those that you/they have taken Lidya and Benson. Any communication with the Earth, would have been able to warn them before dying. We are not dead, but we cannot warn them however.»

«They will come to look for us when they will see that we don't answer to the radio» it said Zeld.

«Yes» it admitted Robin. «When you/they will have organized a consignment. Ten days, perhaps. Otto with some fortune.»

«We will be dead of silk, for then» it said Zeld, dismal.

«Already» it said Robin.

«Better to do immediately ends her/it» Hut exclaimed, shaken; it shook him the hands with strength fighting for maintaining the control.

«Cries her/it, inexperienced person» it said sour Zeld. «Here ended nobody does her/it. We will keep on trying with the ship. Perhaps Lidya and Benson if I/you/they are gotten by. Even the Earth cannot help us, but perhaps some other consignment Martian, of some other cities, it is about to arrive from these parts. We could succeed in contacting her/it. We don't have to surrender us. We save the energies. Let's soothe us. Every fourth of we will now look for a contact radio, to turn.»

Hut reassured him in front of the calm of the companion. Also Robin seemed relaxed. Could The situation be less desperate than he/she believed? Hut sat him with greater ease and removed a pair of troublesome stones.

You/he/she would have been a long attended.

# 21.

The interesting recordings ended there; they followed the periodic attempts of Hut, Robin and Zeld to use the powerful instrumentation of the ship to contact whoever other it was ready to listen, but the ship always refused to collaborate.

I verified the equipments looking for damages, again, but again the system communicated that it was everything to place. I connected me to the central computer and sciorinai the whole interface on the screen: there was an about ten menù of bars, every with sottomenù and sottosottomenù and so street, with maddish nestings. The performances of the ship were completely configurabili; with work I found the part that interested me and I clarified once and for all the matter: the activation of the system of communication of long distance had not been cliccata. Someone had better, provveduto to disable the hardware. For strength the astronauts didn't succeed in transmitting, the electronics was all out. To their insaputa, obviously.

I relighted the system, then I looked for other data on Lidya and Benson: I knew where the others were here three but these you/they had disappeared to the sudden one during the access to the station of sieve. Anybody trace of the shuttle, any recorded transmission. It was a damned problem.

«Be'» I told me. «For first the things that I can resolve.»

The material of the database that I had fished taken back, rearranged and viewed; I eliminated the a little important parts as the trip of the five astronauts toward Mars, that is the big one of the trash that I was me sciroppato. You/he/she had not been useless entirely, in reality: I had learned to know the people that I tried to help. Inside of me I passed the data to the process of transmission I pour the Earth, to the normal speed, removing the dead times. The trial would have lasted many minutes but the center of control to New Sealon would have had the same picture of the situation that I had me. Now it was time that I/you comforted some that three poor thing; I calculated that they were imprisoned in the mine from three days and six hours, firm to suck oxygen from a taking for earth. Without water neither food, thinking about being in procinto to die of difficulties. Unless you/they had not absurdly tried to run away racing over the robot placed waiting for to bomb them of rocky fragments. Then yes, that would be dead.

«Here Angel» I said, amplifying my signal to be sure to make to feel me. «Here Angel. You answer, boys.»

There was an instant of silence; I imagined their incredulity after the hundred frustrating attempts that you/they had accumulated for times and times. I felt a fruscìo.

«Robin» it said the female voice that I had learned to know. It was tired and tried, now. «I am Robin. For love of God, tell me that you are real. With that name, Angel.»

I would have smiled, if I/you had been able.

«Here Angel. Solid I am real and beautiful» I said. He/she didn't know how much. «They are on your ship.»

A choir of it howls they interrupted my sentence. I left that they discharged him: they had to have more enough to be down there himself/herself/themselves of it.

«We are hungry» it said Zeld. «And we die of thirst.»

«Hands us a pair of chickens roast and a frozen beer» it said Hut panting.

«Is calm» I said me. «You withstand another po', of accord? I come to take you more in hurry that I am able.»

«Thanks» it said Robin. «Who are? And how much?»

«I come from New Sealon as you» I said. «Now no questions. I am busy mine for helping you.»

«As you want you, Angel» it said Robin.

They started to chiacchiericciare between them, electrified to the idea to have saved. Resistetti to the temptation to listen and I delayed some second, uncertain on the to make himself/herself/themselves.

Did I have to go to them, but as? I didn't have vehicles, except the ship; I had checked what there was in endowment to the five poverettis and studied the ship and his/her abilities. The tracked one and the dragonfly existed, only the ship I could not move her/it of there because I would not have known whether to do. I am not a pilot. I could learn, perhaps, but wanted us time. I tried to communicate with the centralina of the two light vehicles: of the dragonfly there was not trace, as you/he/she had disappeared from the face of Mars; the tracked one responded to the appeal, instead, communicating me his/her coordinates. It was in the beautiful mean of the before field the mine, where the astronauts had left him. It was perfectly operational, but I was not able teleguidarlo up to me, you/he/she had not been done for that. I would have had to go afoot, with everything that that it behaved. The guy from the beautiful footsies would certainly be made alive, I felt him/it to me, and for some you/he/she would also have been able to suit me: you/he/she damnedly stirred in hurry. But I didn't know what you/he/she would have combined once reaches the mine. Definite to risk. It didn't seem me to have a lot of choice. If nothing else, I was almost certain to be able to maintain a conscience as the last time.

There was not a lot of that I/you could go behind, anything would have slow down me. Tells a last look the instrumentation, then I went me to the principal porthole. I opened: the elastite was disclosed. The invisible diaphragm revealed its presence in the bronzy reflexes, sporadic, that sent forth waving under the hits of the breezes Martian. I bathed me in the elastite surpassing the protected passage. I was me over, on the threshold of entry; the elastite enveloped me completely creating a sort of sphere adherent to my body. I made a footstep and that lengthened, he stretched and it finally detached him from the rest of the membrane. The barrier was restored oscillating, while the translucent material that covered me lost adherence; with a hand I picked up him/it and I tore him/it to me of back. I was out. Anybody trace of the old storm, saw well in all the directions: a sea rugginoso was from now on to me. The exabyte marked me the run to follow for the mine; I opened a window and I underlined the layout that untied him between dunes and rocky prospicienze. Placed the window in low to the right and I started to walk: I was enough quick, but not as my friend wag. I didn't know how to make the wheel, but I succeeded to corricchiare from good stool. The hands jumped on the undulated and uneven ground, grains of sand slipped me among the fingers. I started to hope that my alter ego jumped out, two rapid calculations and with that rhythm I esteemed in a hour the necessary time to reach the three in difficulty.

I had been being to pisticciare for a few minutes there when I felt a light gradual change of humor.

"Eccheddiavolo!" I told me.

There was no reason to try that sorrowful feeling of urgency. The would have had to be proud to find me on Mars to help. I would have had to feel me pleased to do him/it, yes, and of done I started to warn that a knot of tension me it loosened him inside. Here it was this cheerfulness to put me on the notice. I looked for of. to undouble me: The starteds to parallel trial to the principal course of the thoughts; to secondary trial, contemplative, where the myself rational you/he/she could keep on existing. I attributed him certain resources in exclusive way, those deeper than I was able: the access to the database, for example.

I did as soon as in time. Later it was immediately as to transfer a fluid from a bottle to another,: I slipped, almost, among the folds of my conscience, relegating me in a fireside under the pressure of other predominant trials that you/they didn't belong me. I observed them be born impotent.

Happiness spread among the sands of Mars.

«Pepperepèèèè!» peperonai.

I fear I transmitted the cry of war to the three astronauts. I imagine he/she wanted to be the ring of trumpet of the position of the seventh troopers against the wild redskins; I/you/they have always been impassioned of western.

«Who. it is?» one of the men said.

«Ours arrive! That is, yours!» gridolai.

«Who speaks? Angel?» it made Robin.

My body now stirred fast; I was on the ridge of an uphill street sandy hill and my legs they fell under me all speed: if I/you had been of biological material, some tendon I would have gotten torn. I took only this way me a content fear.

«I could call. Anchise» The sing-songeds. «It is the only name that is well us.»

«What?» it said Robin, puzzled.

«Anchise has the stiff hip, boys» I announced, aware of I strive him/it which was submitting my legs.

With a pinch of horror I understood that I was given me that alone name for euphony.

«But what happens? Who is on-line?» it repeated Robin.

«Your cavalier servente, madams.»

Slipping on the slopes of the dune taken away the to the great one; I stretched my bracciogambes and I assumed the aspect of a polpetto numbed by the terror. I began to rivolvere around the capoccione, fast. I sheltered me everything in the contemplative trial; I maintained so the full lucidity, but I didn't have some control of my body anymore.

«Ooooh!» it said Anchise, enthusiastic of the ruddy color of the outskirtses. «The red goes a lot of, this year!»

Anchise made a pirouette, it slightly reverted on the sand crooked, imprudent and as died.

«Anda and it recalls sooner or later for this moor he skids!» he/she ascertained Anchise.

I could feel the three astronauts that discussed among them on me, dismayed. Poor thing. If I were human beings, I would have blushed, closing eyes and ears to ignore those foolish humorous remarks. I felt me in guilt: they were so confused!

«Bruised Siam, doesn't excuse him. Nothing abuses to closed eyes!» it said Anchise.

I was amazed: you/he/she had felt me, you/he/she had felt what I had thought. My trial and his they were not so independent as I believed.

The minutes that passed counted, bewaring the strip of the run of to cover, more and more short. If nothing else me and. Anchise, had the same destination and, The hopeds, the same intention. But this didn't have a lot of sense: a sciroccato as Anchise you/he/she would not have felt like helping anybody, unless you/he/she had not englobed in itself a discreet part of myself. Perhaps we was not so distant two.

We quickly came in sight of the mine.

There was the tracked one, down there, abandoned in the center of the principal square. There was no soul long live there around. I saw a robot proper to the entry of the mine, immovable on his/her zampacces, with the ready pneumatic hammer to smash all to the appearance of human beings. You/he/she had been for me, I would have shown some prudence, but Anchise was not of this notice: it continued the run crossing the square of sbieco, it made a rapids turn around the tracked one, all speed it was projected to toward the robot; that didn't show to have seen us, he/she was immovable in the position of attended. For a moment temetti the impact, but Anchise knew her/it long: with perfect mastery of itself it inserted him among the legs of the robot and it passed him under. The automaton didn't show any reaction.

I was in the mine, now. I studied the to make himself/herself/themselves without succeeding in directing me in the maze of corridors. Anchise if it got by better than me: it continued the run rolling as a top and showing to know well that labyrinth. It raced grazing the prominences of the rocks, in suit scorn of the danger.

I crossed a second robot, Anchise jumped him first on the hammer and then on the flat cervix, therefore zompò on the other side and it continued within a long tunnel; that, thought, that the three astronauts had not been able to face: it was rectilinear and you/they would have been visible to the eyes of the robot and the numerous present sensors. This meant that they was not distant. In fact, Anchise brusquely steered and made few leaps, he stopped entirely. In front of me. that is, to us, there were three people in spatial overall, semisdraiati for earth.

«Papparaparaparapààà!» giubilò Anchise.

Frankly, giubilai with him. The three was alive, even if tried. They slowly stirred, I surprised by the sight of that thick sphere but suspended draft to of the gambottes of spider.

I noticed that the hands fixed me: for them it had to be paradoxical that a small robot as me made show of artificial hands but from the almost human aspect.

«This. thing is?» it said Hut fixing me frightened. He/she perhaps thought that I was some new devilry sent by their mysterious antagonists.

«But cooome?» Anchise exclaimed, putting himself/herself/itself in laying. «You don't recognize me? I am your castigamatti as well as devoted beau for the attractive lady!»

Zeld was the first one to recover himself/herself/themselves.

«Angel. That is Angel» it said with uncertain voice. «A robot, a damned mechanical marionette.»

«Marionette a pair of cionfolis!» Anchise exclaimed, cross. «I am the nicest ragnetto of the lawn, ugly cercopiteco leccachiappe!»

«It is all right, it is all right» Robin intervened. «You six Angel, the voice is that. Can you help us?»

«Not that cosos there. That can be him of it to succhicchiare oxygen until it doesn't burst.»

Anchise alluded to Zeld. The man, that was already rather pale, became waxen.

«It allows to lose Zeld» it said Robin immediately entering the correct spirit. The eye squeezed me. «He likes anybody, but we loves him the same. As we will want to you some, when you will have saved there. I know him/it that you are smart.»

Anchise rubbed the legs on the ground as a bashful child.

«It is nice?» it chewed.

«Also nice. It is obvious» it said Robin smiling.

It had to cost her quite a lot that smile: it had an aspect everything anything else other than florid. Zeld looked at her/it without understanding, scandalized. Hut had only a lean air and kept on staring at me.

«Of accooordo» it made condescending Anchise.

It was not to think of us on. It departed good and ripercorse the street line that the three astronauts had done when you/they were escaped to the first robot; we came, him and I, to the terminal gut, the last front of I dig him/it. We had the destroyer robot in front of us; it was firm as a statue, obviously. Anchise climbed him above climbing himself/herself/itself on the arm bennato; from the bucket it jumped on the armored head. Anchise grabbed on to the neck and made a whole turn around the foreman cubic. I knew what it looked for: a street of access to the brain of the automaton. If he/she didn't know her/it to extract, this time, with his/her only strengths. I could not boss body and arts, and not even all the output devices toward the external world of which I prepared, but I could access memories and database: I opened a window making to start Anchise, that for nothing of the kind was not waited. Him the windows you/he/she could observe only her.

I looked for in the exabyte that, encyclopedic as it was, it contained a lot of information on the mine and his/her equipments. There was a chapter on the robots, wide in impressive way. I scooped out in face to Anchise the system of opening; all it took is crossing with a finger a quarter of neck of the giant. Anchise was not to become enraged: it had the information and it used her/it. One hand of mine rubbed that ferraglia and a mechanism it went off bringing the content of the skull in before, on a kind of metallic tray. Normal procedure for the maintenance. Anchise he rubbed the hands. Again I knew, that he/she wanted to do: to now take the control of the car that this was immovable and vulnerability.

But, again it didn't have idea of as to do.

There was luckily the exabyte. I flowed the procedures of diagnostic on the robot that you/they used to complete in the laboratories on the Earth: there was a fotoaccoppiatore which we could transmit and an emitter led from which to receive. An ancient and elementary system, that however it didn't ask for some physical contact with the robot. I examined the documentation of the interface, twelve paragraphs, contemporarily reading all of them. It was not difficult: the robot used a protocol handshaking of base, very diffused in the simple cars. The probability of an error of transmission was damped by a certain redundance, even pompous, but irrelevant if absurd performances were not pretended in speed. The led I could read him/it, but I didn't have tools able to send forth in the field of the visible one to act on the fotoaccoppiatore. Patience. Strappar needed by that component simulating the operatività of it; I would have had to take a spezzone of thread - and there in that skull there was the embarrassment of the choice, - to act on the point in which the emitter of the fotoaccoppiatore was connected: I had to put him/it in contact with the source of feeding, and therefore to disconnect him/it, to high speed, simulating the sequence of zero and one foreseen by the protocol. A damned job. I hoped that my hands were able to work so quick. I put together ten trials to do everything this; I had to memorize the protocol, to form the laces of bit to transmit, to codify and to insert you the data that I wanted to send. I also had to ready the system of receipt, with the decoding and the interpretation of the data that the robot led would have rebroadcasted away me. The only doubt: Anchise would have operated the hand as I told him? I organized every thing: I opened a new window, beautiful big, to I shift of misunderstandings.

"This is important, Anchise" I thought.

I drew an image of my hand from the exabyte, therefore I modified her/it with a graphic utility. Here: I had two images, one with the hand that brought in contact the input circuits with the feeding, the other that brought them to mass. The one and him zero. I tried to show a sequence to Anchise, slowly. Anchise stared at her/it without doing nothing. I repeated her, anchor, anchor, and still. Finally Anchise understood that it was to him: moved the fingers in that way, gesture for gesture. I repeated the fast sequence and then fast. Anchise followed my movements to the letter, precise. Its mechanical mastery was dreadful. I repeated another time, now so in hurry that a normal man would not even have noticed the movement of the hands on the screen. But Anchise repeated to the perfection, in less than a tenth of according to. It was time to give us inside.

«Hey, Angel, where are you ended?» it said Zeld.

I ignored him/it.

I showed to Anchise where and as to act, in the brain robotico; by now you/he/she had understood. In a battibaleno Anchise grasped a conductor and tore him/it from the optic sensors of the automaton. They didn't serve anymore: there was me to see to his/her place.

It fixed the hand with precision, using another of it to sustain astride himself/herself/themselves stable of the monster. It was ready.

Ten trials: a true hell.

Procedure of reset, indeed. I had to cancel his/her fool planning. I analyzed the circuits and I did very soon. I tore the chip (I said to Anchise to do him/it, obviously) that you/he/she had been inserted to beautiful mail and I restarted the primitive brain: the robot sent me a lace you date. Was it an application of operational procedures; as to say: thing you want that face? I produced the lace of answer and I transmitted her/it to him through the hand of Anchise. Beh, our hand. The robot stirred, rattling. I had to drive well it for; luckily it was slow, I had the necessary time to communicate, to elaborate and to say to Anchise as to use the fingers.

We walked some halfhearted ones, but he went. The robot had a program to compensate the losses of equilibrium. I left him/it operational. The right shoulder started to rub on the scabrous walls of the mine removing pebbles and dust.

A small adjustment and we proceeded on-line straight line until it was possible.

There was a curve, now, and then the along rectilinear.

I chatted a lot with the robot, and that steered in the correct direction, almost cleverly. I crossed a beautiful portion of tunnel, then I turned for reaching the three battered astronauts.

«Aaah!» it howled Hut when he/she saw to arrive the robot.

Then it also noticed me to cavaceccio of the giant and it reduced the exclamation to a smothered rattle.

«Saaalve boys. Son returned armed. You missed son?» Anchise all happy exploded.

«You have him under control you?» he/she asked Robin noticing my handlings on the uncovered head.

«Be'» Anchise responded. «I check him/it up to the marrow and I don't release him/it.»

«I imagine that I/you/he/she am a yes» it said Robin, lifted.

«We go to play out there» it made Anchise. «I have brought the ball.»

It alluded to itself same, I believe. However I grabbed the allusion. I made to do a behind-front to the robot and I began to slowly walk, peering at back for seeing what they were astronauts. Those, after an instant of hesitation, they detached the pipes of the respirator from the takings on the ground and them riagganciarono to his/her own reservoirs. They got up standing, with some complaint, and they followed us.

We introduced there in the long astute tunnel and we were sighted by the second robot; the astronauts were behind of me, the robot could not see them but the sensors on ceiling and walls they transmitted him images and other data profits to identify them as human: the automaton started to do a lot of noise. We approached us, but the three and they was stopped to safety distance; Anchise and I continued with the usual cautious and heavy footstep. We reached the other robot: an industrial quantity of deposits started to strike us, but being that that we were the thing told not us thought. We lifted the arm with the pneumatic hammer and we approached us to the brain of the mechanical miner; we aimed the extremity of the hammer at him and we activated him/it. To the beginning it seemed nothing not to happen, then a well perceptible trembling crossed the limbs of our robot and we braked the skull of the other without effort. The fused rests and fumanti of its head sizzled and they fell to the ground.

The poor man beheaded monster slightly oscillated, in unbalanced position still in before; it leftly squeaked, then it fell to the ground lifting a cloudlet of dust rugginosa.

The astronauts took back to advance whiffs of carbonic anhydride that turned him into ice to thin grains puffing. The ground was filled with greyish beads. I taken the street of access of the mine, toward the last one of the robots that it blocked us the footstep. That had already started to martorizzare the time of entry with his/her hammer, since we were not taken there he/she intrigues her/it to demolish all the sensors that we met. I felt only at first the din of it, then I was me in front of him in time to see to collapse him I set the whole curved wall.

The sudden yelding took us of surprise: I felt Zeld that cursed and Robin that murmured something less minced.

The robot, covered with rocks and pebbles, it didn't stir more: he/she saw only a leg, that appeared on the surface among the rocks it sprinkled everywhere.

The collapse had closed the exit, but it was not a problem. I made to rotate the left shoulder and I inserted the bucket. It was a voluminous and heavy utensil; I stuck out from now on it to our automaton and I balanced the weight bringing back the right arm to the. I inserted the bucket in the uproar of deposits and I began to dig: stones, pebbles or it sand-blasts that were, I removed, I lifted and I unloaded from a side having care not to do too spicinìo not to create problems to the overall of the human ones.

With that mean I didn't put big there that to free the exit. We returned to see the sky of Mars and we left the mine. I felt many sighs of satisfaction. The astronauts raced toward the tracked one and me I followed them with calm without abandoning the robot: you/he/she had been a very useful mean.

Robin climbed on board of the vehicle, followed by the others two.

I reached them and the tracked one cooperated I.

«It jumps on, Angel» it said Robin making me sign with the hand. «That robots it doesn't serve you more.»

I was reluctant: without the robot I was an iron palletta in balìa of the events. Luckily Anchise agreed with me, even if for different motives.

«It is a toy fantasticissimo» he whined toddling. «Let's bring him/it with us.»

«You/he/she has been useful» Zeld stuck. «You/he/she could still serve.»

«Yes» it said Hut. «Let's load him/it on board.»

Robin nodded and made me sign with the finger.

«Load him/it on a train of wheels, Angel. We will use the others to go to the ship» it said.

I moved the robot, I put a foot of it on the ship boy of a big wheel and I hoisted him/it on the track; to be certain that it didn't fall I inserted the bucket in the track. Satisfied, Anchise and I jumped on board inserting us in the cabin with the others. Robin closed the doors and turned on the motor. The tracked one departed with a notable resumption sending to beat me against Zeld.

«Hey!» the man complained him pushing me without grace. «You see to be me distant, nanerottolo.»

I am a patient type, but Anchise heard again him; he defended his/her own ego in maniacal way. It slowly drew near to Zeld and it fixed the hard face of it behind the roundness of the helmet. Zeld reciprocated the look.

«Copròlito» it said plain Anchise.

I didn't know this word. Robin yes, because it started laughing.

«What?» it said Zeld.

«Copròlito» it repeated Anchise.

«It would be to say?» he/she asked suspicious Zeld.

Robin, snickering, it stuck out him toward the frowning face of the man.

«Be', it would be. material fecale hardened in the intestinal light, says.»

«Merda dries» it specified Hut, him laughing also.

Zeld became as a pepper red. It was not in a the correct mood for the offenses, even if I had saved him the skin. The man did for pushing he anchors me, but Anchise lifted a leg fast. Zeld interrupted him, amazed.

«You have heard?» Anchise hooted.

The three looked him. Then a slipped crepitìo and unequivocal spread in the overall. Anchise pointed out Zeld without uncertainties.

«Puzzetta. Shame, Zeld» it said.

«Aaah!» it did strong Zeld, annoyed and without words.

«Polluzione?» it said Anchise. «This time the overall washes alone her to you.»

Robin openly laughed; Zeld observed me with disappointment but without understanding. Anchise loved giocar of lexicon in childish way and resulted incomprehensible to Zeld. Robin followed very well instead it.

«Accidental Eiaculatio» he/she explained her.

«Unintentional orgasm» it immediately translated Hut, expressionless. It had a good time, but it didn't intend to make to realize him/it to the big man.

«Small bastard robot.» it murmured Zeld.

«I don't believe» it said Robin, again serious.

«Thing?» it said Zeld.

«I want to say. The don'ts believe that I/you/he/she robot am. Too much skilled, of initiative.»

Anchise removed him from Zeld and ciampicò on the zampucces, strutting himself/herself/itself in mincing way.

«You are right» it said Hut. «Dev'essere a terminal, with someone that he/she pilots him/it to distance.»

«According to me it is not even this» it said thoughtful Robin.

This time surprised Anchise me and it didn't say anything: until it evidently received compliments there was no need to add other.

«It is too much skilled. It is not easy to drive an apparatus in at all remote, and we have seen him make complex things.»

For Robin I was a puzzle; it drove for a bit in silence and every now and then it detained him to peer at me with perplexed air. Anchise drew near to the woman to look better at her and the it supported him to a leg.

«You seem really a good kitten, Angel. Thank you for having helped us» it said her with sweet voice.

«Ragnetto» it said Anchise, everything sugar and honey.

«A good ragnetto, then.»

Now all observed me with curiosity, also Zeld.

I am be liked to assist another po' to that absurd scene but the mental work that I had actually completed to that moment and the stress of the last events they made him feel; not only on me, Anchise also seemed tried: I could perceive not the his/her thoughts but the structures of his/her identity that cracked him. Now Anchise was a trial that had the tendency to fall through, as mine. Its weakness was mine, mine was his. I knew that you/he/she was gotten tired quite a lot in to pilot our hardware. It was not what from not too long. He and I were everything one, both we needed rest. We abandoned us on the seats releasing the skeletal legs.

«What happens him now?» he/she asked Zeld.

I heard him/it, however the voice came me.

«What will happen not to us as soon as we will touch the berths» Robin answered. «At least I believe.»

The world gradually extinguished him.

# 22.

Is sat on the legs of Robin. I was taking back me; my legs hung until almost to touch the floor.

We found us in the room control, I had a fleeting circular vision of it. In front of me there was the face of Robin, near: you/he/she was still trying to understand what I was.

«Mrs.?!» I exclaimed.

Robin made a bump.

«Eh? Ah, is conscious» it said, almost in embarrassment.

«Yes.»

«Up to a little while ago. you have slept» it murmured Robin, uncertain.

«Yes» I said.

«We have slept, also after being refreshes us. We are discreetly, except Hut. After three days of fast he/she is not gulped down so much food. You/he/she has vomited in epic way.»

«I regret it. Are we on the ship?»

«Certain. We wake up from not too long there, as you. Apart everything we are very better. And you?»

Strange question to be done to a robot; but, already, Robin was not not at all convinced that I was him/it.

«Tired. Too things all together» I said.

«Uhm.» it did her astute with expression. «What end you/he/she has made the brisk and spiteful little boy?»

I had not been very serious in the last times, in effects.

I mentally smiled.

«It is here always, inside this steel cap. People don't have an only face. The same is worth for me.»

Robin slowly inhaled. Something in his/her aspect struck me; until now I had seen her behind a helmet or in the recordings of the ship. To have her/it near aroused in me feelings that I thought about not being able to try: loneliness, that kind of small suffering that brings yourself to feel the lack of whom is nearby you, also when it is nearby you. We are isolated beings, not only if you/he/she is covered by a caress as me; at times the need of a greater intimacy feels him, that kind of sharing that goes beyond the differences of culture, believes and fisicità.

Sharing. An arduous condition to be reached.

Robin was an interesting person, not only because you/he/she was smart. Human beings, also toward an iron palletta as me. I don't know if I would have had the same mental opening.

And it was female: it had to be on the forty, but it was still attractive and keynote. There was me the yearning desire to hear again me man, unfortunately.

We kept on chatting for some.

I observed at the most her with all of my senses: every single wrinkle, every pore of his/her face they assumed a meaning. To the infrared ones the influx of blood that bedewed its skin spoke to me of the feelings that it tried, even if I didn't know how to interpret well it. But every breath, every pulsation, alleged to that face different things, as if thoughts and emotions filtered the normal physiological rhythms bringing you proper tones.

I had never focused so much on someone: I had escaped other people's knowledge, above all that of the people to me dear. Did The emotions of my daughter, frighten for instance me,: thing tried really Daylight for his/her father, now that was fifty-fifty alone man? I trembled to the idea to be overpowered by his/her punishment. But Robin as man had never known me: you/he/she could not be you/he/she suffers us in her.

I received me; I saw Robin in an incompatible way with what I was and these thoughts could not do well me. Better assembling my mind on the to make himself/herself/themselves.

Robin seemed to think her/it equally: there were out there two companions of his, it needed to do the possible one to individualize them. I saw the woman that revived him, ready for more operational activity.

«I have tried to find their traces. of Lidya and Benson» The anticipated him. «Nothing. In the computer the last data bring them to the catapult.»

«Lidya and Benson» it said Robin, with a furrow of concentration on the forehead. «You know them?»

«Only from the recordings. I have viewed all the data memorized in the hard disk of the ship, since the departure.»

«All?»

«Yes.»

«I am terabyte of stuff! From when you are here on Mars?»

I didn't have a precise idea of it. I slightly felt me confused.

«Four hours around, I believe.»

«Impossible» it said Robin with simplicity, after being him sort some accounts.

You/he/she was not giving me any liar, it was only a costatazione. In four hours I had also had to reach the ship, to race from them, to help them and to return to their vehicle.

«I was starting to think that you human beings, but now.»

«I am him/it. With something in more and something in less» I admitted. The bitterness of my voice surprised me. It also surprised her. It fixed me for a moment, then takings a decision.

«Lidya and Benson» it said. «Let's look for them. But promise to continue him/it to me this discourse.»

«Of accord» I assured.

Zeld and Hut entered the room to quick footstep; Hut was some pale, but both had taken back vigor. Robin greeted them with a sign of the head.

«Angel says that the transmissions of Lidya finish to the catapult. I propose to go there as soon as possible.»

«We are ready» it said Hut.

«We go with the ship?» I asked.

Zeld looked me for a moment.

«No» he/she answered. «We are not able. The ship cannot land next to the catapult: too much heavy. There are down there a lot of underground caverns.»

Zeld set out toward the door, I didn't even try to follow him/it.

«I don't believe to make her/it» I whispered toward Robin. «Not yet.»

«I bring you me» it whispered her of rhyming.

It grabbed better me and it got up standing.

We left the whole room and we inserted there in the tracked one.

Zeld operated the device of unblocking and we detached there from the rest of the hull; the vehicle coughed slightly, then it departed with a mighty release.

The trip was not long, but we would have employed however more time that with the dragonfly. Hut had brought with itself a medical equipment of emergency, he/she is never known.

It was not a lot of comfort: with the pressure of the correct hurry says Zeld us within with the gas, the tracked one devoured the sands and it squirted everywhere sassaiole. There for there it didn't seem me a great idea: if Lidya and Benson had been on the street of the return to the ship proceeding afoot we would have been a danger. But perhaps probability was least: nobody would have meant him/it, but all thought about the worse. Robin, Zeld and Hut had escaped her and it was evident that someone would have been dissatisfied of it; but the others two had not received help, you/they had been left to itself same.

We covered a half the journey in silence, each absorbed in his/her own thoughts. Then something unexpected happened: the tracked one went beyond the nth dune, it sputtered and it rasped on the ground overcoming the top of it. Then the motor extinguished him.

Zeld tried to relight him/it, then it still tried.

«It doesn't go» it said, with the face of stone.

«It retries» it said Robin, also her antiseptic.

Zeld kept on trying until it was not evident that there was few to do.

«An accursed place to be a mechanic» it observed calm Hut.

The glacialità of the others had infected him.

«Already» it said Zeld. «Correct fifty-fifty road, in the middle of the nothing.»

«We give a glance to the motor» I tried to suggest.

«It won't serve to anything» concluded Robin.

Zeld looked at her/it with absorbed expression.

I knew what they thought: the aggression to the group continued, but it now touched to an apparatus that only one of them could sabotage.

«We have to give him a glance» I said with conviction.

They understood very well me. We went out all how much in the atmosphere Martian: Zeld opened the chest and examined the bowel of the car. There was no anything visible, at least for an ignorantone as me. Robin he placed side by side him and it quickly got off some stuff.

«The electric plant» it said. «You/he/she is almost all jumped, here inside.»

«Casual?» it made Zeld.

«Perhaps an overload» it said Robin. «And perhaps no. We can mend him/it, but we have to return to the ship. We don't have all the exchanges, here. It is an unusual damage.»

There was a silence that lasted a couple of minutes.

«We always have the robot» I said me.

I jumped of behind and I grabbed on me to the neck of the automaton. I would not have known how to race to wheel as the zuzzurellone that I could become, but I was able to maneuver that robots. After all I had already done everything how much the job alone: Angel the allegrone had repeated only the movements that I told him to complete. I relighted the old trials; they were tested, by now. I didn't start a lot there going down from the vehicle towering on my companions of trip. I was perched up there, twos meters and a half of height, with the hands on the cervix uncovered of the metallic bestiaccia, well in equilibrium on his/her piedonis alettati.

«Someone wants to climb?» I asked.

They looked me at all, reflecting.

«Anybody, Angel» it said Robin slightly shaking the head. «We have to return to the ship, all and three. It is the only way to care.»

The other ones I will be dictated a look, stupid that the woman was so explicit.

«They agree» it said Zeld.

Hut also nodded.

«It is not to make effortless to bring from that robots» it said the young one, frowning. «You could not bring all, however. It would be unwise to leave alone one among these sands, and it would be worse also to leave two of them. Robin is right.»

«I will go to the ship for my account» I proposed. «The material that you tell me and I return here take.»

But also now Robin didn't agree.

«No. We would waste a lot of time and we don't know how Lidya and Benson are. They immediately need perhaps help. We don't know not even if the tracked one is repairable. If someone has sabotaged him, he/she knew his/her fact.»

«It is right» it said Hut. «Here nothing doesn't go. We cannot even make to depart one diagnostic.»

«We will go three to the ship» definite Zeld. «Together. Will want us a hour of walk. You, Angel, will go to the catapult. If you will find our companions, you will try to bring back them, in whatever condition is. On the robot you will reach the catapult in ten minutes, more other winds to return to the ship. You will do all before we arrive.»

«Yes. And if you don't find anybody. beh we will see then thing other to I give. We will improvise» it suggested Hut.

I had not done anything else other than to improvise, from when I had gone down on Mars, and it was a thing that I didn't like at all. I looked at Robin: also she was approving with a sign of the head.

They were convinced for that line of thought, I didn't know whether to counter. They perhaps judged the situation in judicious way but the idea to leave alone that three few I liked: if the furbone were one you/he/she could also be all right, but if they were two, the bystander would have made an ugly end.

I thought about Robin, alone with two men.

But you/he/she could be also her, the saboteur, could not know him/it. My despite, idea seemed reasonable.

«We will care in contact radio» I said me with threatening tone. «If someone has intention to make some jokes, it is well that knows that I can be also cattivello.»

«I believe it» it said Robin without irony.

I set out me with the robot without looking back me.

The exabyte knew where I had to go, I had to the right the rout drawn on a finestrella in low. I began to slowly walk, with a certain puissance, and meanwhile I did an I recapitulate some abilities of move of that giant. To quickly move the hand was not difficult, but I was not able to reach the exaggerated speeds of Anchise yet; I got by, however. I reached the ridge of a high ground and I could not avoid to turn back me before scollinare: down there, among the smoky sands, the three astronauts were slowly walking toward the ship in silence.

# 23.

The catapult was on a notable open space; slightly in inclination as a shield volcano, the ground reached the tallest point whereas the hyperbolic structure of guide had been built for the cart. When I reached the layers, busy in a light ascent, I saw the empty cart to beginning run, deposed to earth, to contact with the thin shiny platform that salivates at first in invaluable way, for then to dart steep and game toward the depth of the sky Martian.

Of the construction turned to the sieve, the shelter of access was seen, with a dusty oblique hatch for the men and the showy dirty cone for the I unload some materials.

Around nient'altro was not seen for hundreds of meters.

The ground was smooth and deprived of imprints, as if anybody, from years, it was past than there. You/he/she had been the storm: you/he/she had covered every thing with the sands furious and lost those traces that would have been able to tell me where the dragonfly was landed. Patience. I brought me to the station of sieve with my elephant footstep, I made to kneel to earth the robot, so much to give him a stable posture, and I jumped down from his/her head. I bounced on the ground and I put me around four legs. I had the hatch of entry in front of me.

«Here Angel» I called. «They are to the entry of the sieve. How does he enter?»

I had the information in the exabyte, but the astronauts could not know him/it. I wanted only to hear their voice.

«Here Robin. There is a small panel in front of you, on the door. Reward him/it three times.»

I felt to puff as if to the radio there was a cooled facocero.

«You are taken yourself a cold, Robin?» I asked.

«Here Zeld. My guilt, had out slightly the radio place. I systematize her.»

The rustles stopped.

«How Hut it is?» I asked.

«If really you want to know him/it, Angel, has not killed me yet» it said the young one.

«I wanted to assure me that you were all whole ones.»

«Certain» it said Robin.

«I am entering» I said, after having opened the steel rolling shutter. «Qual is the first thing that you/they would have made Benson and Lidya, once done arrive until here?»

Robin thought continuosly about an instant for his/her account recalling to the mind the protocol of routine.

«Uhm. the procedures foresees first the restocking of the reservoirs of the chemical solvents, then the loading of the catapult with the material ready stoccatis already for the throwing, and finally the sequences of throwing up to the exhaustion of the escorts. Do you feel the active cars, Angel?»

There was no sound. I could not hear, but the vibrations of the ground I would certainly have perceived her.

«No, I don't feel her.»

«Well you don't owe. The system arrests when someone opens the door. It starts over working when the door is sealed again.»

«Where I find the siloses?»

«You go straight always, you cannot be wrong you.»

I left the entry and I gone down a long comfortable staircase.

I found me in a wide corridor with a lot of doors to the sides, all dams. I continued. After a curve, the corridor widened and I was me in a great circular stanzone with others handed to the walls; in a hollow of the wall there were the siloses, tall and transparent. Each had a steel cover that directly gave on the sky Martian. One was almost empty, the other heights for half.

«They have to be all full ones for at least two bystanders» it said Zeld.

«I/you/they have not been supplied» concluded me. «Something has happened before. I will give a glance to see if there are traces of recent visits.»

Went looking for around imprints as a detective, but the environment recycled and filtered the external air removing the dusts of it, so it was everything enough clean. I opened wide I don't know anymore how much handed, finding a lot of apparatuses; the deposit of the rocks to be sifted, full for a bystander and the deposit of stoccaggio of the ready material to be launched, practically empty. I counted twelve minutes of useless searches, therefore I returned to the outside and I sealed the porthole: now that knew him/it, I made case to the low and deep trembling of the automatic systems that the operations of sieve took back. I allowed to lose, and I went up again on the robot: I didn't want that my alter ego ridanciano sprouted again out. I went to inspect the outskirtses making a turn in the plain one of the catapult.

Tells a look the cart, and I noticed that in reality it was astride of the metallic guide, but it didn't touch her/it; the big small truck leaned for earth with two ample thick roller skate. A glance in more and I perceived me that, of fact, those were two cylinders that contained the powerful propellers of the vehicle. I crossed the steel platform, shiny for the lashes of the winds; for the almost horizontal line I placed side by side me trotting us as a drunk, then I brought below of it up to find to observe me the apex of the run, taller than me of about ten meters. On the ground, below the almost vertical portion of the thick gun carriage, the vector at the most of the turns you/he/she had left two light circular imprints, whereas the puffs of the reaction propulsion you/they had come up to earth. The two small depressions, identical, they had a dark complexion, different from the surrounding ground. I went over and I closed the circle around the catapult finding again my imprints.

The moment had come to make the summary of the situation:

To) I had not found trace of Benson or Lidya, neither of their vehicle.

B) I didn't have the palest idea of where you/they would have been able to be.

C) I had left alone the other three astronauts, with the possibility that among them there pits a murderous saboteur or two.

An intervention, mine, decidedly ficcante and effectiveness.

I didn't have to make to take me from the nervousness; the things were not a lot of that knew to do, but in a thing by now I excelled: to use the exabyte. I activated him/it and I studied what was on the installation, on as it worked and on as it interacted with the outside. I saw a lot of simulations and of video on the systems of sieve, filtration and stoccaggio of the materials. I also saw the automatic shuttles in orbit around the planet as light skeletons waiting for to catch material jewels.

But, above every other thing, the throwing impressed me in the space with the catapult. There was also the sonorous one and it was what upset more me: I was not almost more gotten used to feel the true sounds, and that was the first damned noise that had been penetrating inside of me for a lot of time, even if in digital form. It was an inexpressible din. The lightnings of the motors as solid lances on wipes away her some cart, they disappeared aloft there so in hurry not to be seemed real.

In short: it studies, I studied, I studied. I let me take the hand and I found around me with about twenty mental operations for the brain, each busy to study something of complex; I had some difficulties to put again all together. I was sits of it there, on the head of the robot, immovable as a statue.

It seemed me they spent times, but the exabyte informed that you/they were spent only two minutes from when I had activated him. Absurd. After that time, not some two minutes, I had considered everything that that I had available and I had already started to give me some fool. I continued for some, so much to offend well me for, called then Robin.

«Here Angel. Does he/she anchor all whole ones?»

A choir of three yes and a triplex fiatone of foundation.

The accounts returned, for the time being.

«Someone has operated the catapult. From few» I announced.

«Lidya.» it said Zeld.

«You/he/she can give him» I said me.

«How you know him/it?» he/she asked Hut.

«Because there were two imprints under the guide of the catapult, where the rockets have shot their throw on the ground.»

«Because you say that has happened from few?» he/she asked Robin.

«Because those are the imprints that I have seen in the video of the throwing. Not big holes in the ground, that you/they would have been able to be partly covered by the storm leaving a residue. No, small forms. If a storm was followed, you/they would immediately have disappeared, confused by the sand. I/you/they have been done later then.»

«There is a way to verify him/it» it said Robin. «We can see if one of the shuttles of transport has received the material.»

«And as?» I objected. «The shuttles make world to themselves. I am the most antiquated piece of the system. They don't interact, they don't share the data; they limit him to accumulate them for the postdiagnostica on the Earth.»

«What kind of data?» Hut joined in conversation.

«Gives on the harvest of the materials. On the coincidence with their target, the container of the mineral ones. On the efficiency of the capture with the nets. Gives that serve for improving the operation of the system. A lot of techniques have been tried, but the most efficient has remained that of the capture with the visual survey of the target. The most ancient.»

And idea matured at that time: I would have opened wide the mouth, if I/you had had one of it.

«How you know all these things?» he/she asked Robin, doubtful.

«I have studied a database, when I have left the station of sieve» I mechanically said, while I was starting over giving me some idiot.

«In two minutes?» it said Robin.

My goodness, then you/they had been really two.

«Already» I did.

My mouth was ideally still wide open.

«I am an imbecile stratosferico» I admitted.

«If you tell him/it you» it commented Zeld.

«What Angel takes you?» he/she asked Robin.

«I perhaps know whether to find the dragonfly. Unfortunately for me» I said.

Silence.

«You regret to explain?» it made Hut.

«Some. I have to arrive on one of those ships in orbit.»

«To do of it?»

«Visual coincidence» I explained. «A shuttle remains waiting for a load for a piece. It watches the catapult. It attends the moment of the throwing to understand if it will pass nearby and it will be her turn to catch the mineral one; he/she esteems the rout and currency of it the point and the useful instant for the throwing of the net. Everybody data that you/they remain in memory.»

«Caspita» Hut exclaimed. «In the memory of the transport that has recovered the load there is a resumption of the surface Martian. That part around the catapult. However, the shuttles with the full one of materials go on the Earth.»

«True» I said. «But the images are also in all those that stay. The next shuttle to the point of arrival of the mineral one picks him/it up and goes, but the others.»

«Fantastic» it admitted Zeld. «All it takes is looking at the last recording in chronological order.»

«How you think about going on that freighters, Angel?» he/she asked Robin.

«You know him/it» I said.

Alarm clock was too not to have I happen me.

«You are crazy» it said with emphasis.

«There is no other way» I beat.

I would never have liked to do him/it; the legs trembled me to the only thought. Literally.

«You were right Angel. You are an imbecile stratosferico» it sentenced Robin.

«The catapult!» it howled Hut.

«Yes» I said.

«I imagine that you know how to make to work her/it» it made Robin.

«I believe. There are some complicanzes, however» I confabulated. «A piccoletto as me would be ignored from those ships. I have to launch me with a true load. If however I do him/it, when we are taken in the net the ship it favors the inactivity of the material and it estranges from Mars to the speed of escape I pour the Earth. If I also took the commands, it would be arduous to return back. The motors of those shuttles are tired, they put us a lot of time to win the inertial mass of the mineral ones. But we admit that I/you/he/she succeed us. The only way that I have for returning on the surface Martian is to fall. The shuttles are not made for flying in the attenuate atmosphere of Mars; they have some wings, but not enough great to sustain the really weight. Here The portanza would be too much scarce.»

«However you would have that data however» it said Zeld.

«Yes» I admitted.

What did he/she want to say that man?

«You could make him/it the attempt however, and to remain on the shuttle up to the Earth.»

«Zeld!» Robin exclaimed.

«What there is?» it made Zeld. «Would not happen him nothing. It is not at all a human being him. It would not starve.»

I could not give him blame if he/she thought her/it this way.

«Instead yes» I said me. «It serves me food and oxygen, exactly as to you.»

«And is, then» taken back Zeld. «We appraise what both better. To sacrifice two members of our group, two human beings; or Angel, a kind to be biomeccanico.»

«. that you/he/she has saved us the life. You cannot speak seriously. As for the human beings.» Robin started.

«You/he/she is not saying badly» I joined in conversation. «But I don't know how much the data would be useful. I would not use those as needle of the balance.»

«Thing is, a damned turnaround?» it said Zeld, angry. «First they were important, now that it speaks of your skin I am not him/it more?»

I kept the calm: I could not give now even him blame.

I felt the three that they discussed on the matter with rather power on tones. To see something of the surface while there were being Lidya and Benson you/he/she could serve, and I was for that to help them there. If indeed an indication could be had of where or as to find them, as would I have been able to abdicate? Two human beings to comparison with one fifty-fifty. In reality the comparison there was not at all. To decide was easy.

«Well. Does someone know where I can find a load for the catapult?» I asked.

The three stopped shouting and they made silence for a long moment.

«What you want to say?» he/she asked Zeld.

«The container of the mineral one, what is hoisted on the vector of the catapult. I have not seen of it, in the station of sieve.»

«A crane will serve you to transport him/it.»

«I have him, the crane» I said.

I had that robots I toast.

«Ah. Be', load and container are directly assembled by the station, once that you/he/she has been selected and prepared the material by to send in the room vector.»

I knew him/it, I had looked at the whole procedure on the exabyte. But I would have had to interact with the system, to make a load me same, since in the rooms of stoccaggio you/he/she had not been anything there. in short, to waste to lot of time. The room vector: the ready bullet for the throwing was extracted from there and brought on the cart with the crane. The container was found there already inside; the system filled him/it according to the model of occupation of the spaces thought by the human operator, then it opened a botolone and the crane you/he/she could extract him/it as a cork from a neck of bottle. I looked in the exabyte where the room was found vector. Forty more meters in there from where I was; I taken a good footstep and I reached the botolone; at least, the point in which I thought that, under that homogeneous layer of sands, it owed us to be the big metallic cover. I rotated the left shoulder and I grafted the aspirator of dusts. I turned on and I sent to everybody, aiming the mouth ingluviatrice, black and dirty, against the ground. Noise departed difficult, but then the hell instigated him: I lifted a miniskirt storm of sand over my shoulders, confiscating in the hungry gun carriage of my arm an exaggerated quantity of particles that you/they were projected back to the with all the energy of which I prepared.

Grants me few second, so much to see if it worked. My goodness: I had not only polished up the ground revealing the botolone, but I had fleshed the tawny rocks of the outskirtses.

«How other opens this cover?» I asked.

I knew that it opened alone, once that the load had been ready, but I wanted to open him/it now.

«Be'» it said Hut. «Only the system opens him/it, after.»

«With the cabbage» I said me.

The three astronauts had to have an unpleasant auditory perception, when I pierced the botolone with the pneumatic hammer and I tore away it with the bucket. The big deformed plate ristette oscillating winds more meters in there swept by a delicate sandy breeze.

«Damages to the city ownerships» it commented Robin.

I knew that you/he/she was smiling.

«I see the container. A big blackish sphere with a thick handle in top.»

In effects in low, in the hole that I had uncovered, there was a very strong hook which you/they evidently had to stick the crane.

«I try to lift her/it.»

It was a damned problem: even if the sphere was empty and therefore easier to move, I didn't have the correct tools to grab her/it. The mighty hands would have served me that had my old metallic body. But, I could regulate otherwise perhaps me,: I had a great pick, in alternative to the pneumatic hammer. I rotated the shoulder right middle turn and I grafted the arm with the great steel arc, inserting an extremity of it in the ring. It was a lot of difficulty, not so much for the pick but for the rest of the body of the robot. I had to stick out downward it without falling, since the sphere was not shaved earth but boxed in the subsoil of about seventy centimeters. I didn't know whether to put the legs of the robot, to make strength and to lift that round thing. Divaricai the legs and I planted the feet on the edges of the opening in the ground, but it was accursedly an unstable position. I hoisted the sphere throwing the hook; I almost capsized me. I stuck out the left arm over the back and I leaned the bucket against the ground Martian. This way it was all right, at least I could not fall. I hoisted again and the big ashy ball squirted aloft out of the hole making to upset back me to the.

The bucket stopped me, the sphere went beyond my body and timidly tumbled on the sands. The operation had put me to hard test: the robot didn't belong to my body, to make to move him/it in unusual way I had had to make a great work of creative communication forcing the protocols in times ridottissimi.

«It is light» I murmured, the sphere that blandly pitched looking. «There is an opening below.»

Its lightness was impressive: it was a dark ball of four meters diameter, but I could move her/it without problems. You/he/she had to have made of a special material, because it was undoubtedly strong. The inferior counter was enormous. You/he/she had still opened, since the system didn't have provveduto to close again him/it. The lock had to be magnetic, but there was also luckily a mechanical lock that I could easily use.

I built the robot.

«Angel» it said Robin. «You don't have to do him/it for strength.»

You/he/she had put to come to say him/it of it of time; I knew that it felt like serving him/it as the moment in which I had decided to climb on the catapult.

«Thanks» I said. «But I have decided.»

«Then, beh. of accord» it said her. «However you have to know that according to me it won't work to empty vector.»

A blow ideally dictates me in head. Imbecile, for the nth time. I didn't try taste to offend me, but when he deserves him.

«The attrition of the air» I said me.

«Yes. The atmosphere of Mars is attenuate, but the catapult projects in thousands the vector of kilometers the time. If the vector doesn't have enough mass, the strength of attrition with the atmosphere reduces too much the speed in hurry and instead of reentering in orbit the vector it reverts to the ground.»

«Not to worry you. I will fill this large case. I have the correct equipment to play with the sand.»

Often from a problem an idea that resolves him/it systematizing a second of it in unexpected way rises. I am not a physicist but the idea to be able to regulate the weight of the vector and in this way to work on the decrement of his/her speed it gave me a new perspective. I had to give me to do, however. Holy exabyte. I don't remember to how much you try says away the, this time; I had to compensate my ignorance. This way I studied the physics of the atmosphere Martian, the characteristic densitometriches of the sands of zone, the aerodynamic mechanics and the whole mathematics of support. To the meantime, I measured with the maximum precision the capacity of my bucket, and this was nice; I had looked for the datum in the exabyte, but there was not. I pretended too much perhaps. But there was another interesting fact: the robot was able to measure the volumetria of the material risucchiato through the aspirator on the left arm, all it took is asking him him; and I was able. This way I filled the bucket, tilting a grain not to even lose her/it, then I rotated the shoulder and I used the other arm, that of the aspirator, turning him/it on the bucket to my shoulders. I inhaled every thing, up to the most minute powder, and I checked the quantity. I passed the information to the trial that checked the densities of zone and I calculated the weight of a bennata. The mathematical trial told what mass I had to have for going out of the planet with the speed that I wanted, to the quota in which I knew how to be himself/herself/themselves the shuttles, departing from her/it well note speed in gone out of the catapult. To do this I integrated the density of the atmosphere to the different quotas with the preceding data and I appraised the strength of in operation attrition of the speed of flight and the quota; therefore I resolved the simple equation that the quota of harvest of the transports tied I pour the Earth, the speed to that quota and the mass of the vector to the clean one of the container. I tried first with mass zero, and obviously I saw that I would never be gone out of the orbit. I knew him/it, but it was so much to make a small verification. I started to increase the mass, but after a pair of attempts I baited a trial iterativo that went on for his/her account, and meanwhile I filled to bennate the sphere holding the account of the shovelfuls. I finally reached the hoped result; known the necessary mass and knowing the weight of a bennata, I also knew of how much bennate I had need to reach the anticipated weight.

I realized me that I was about to mistake everything: I would have been climbed on board also me, and with the robot; together we weighed not little. I translated our weight in bennate of sand and I did the difference with the calculated one.

Here I had ended, the manual job stayed.

He/she didn't want a lot us to fill the sphere of the wanted quantity. It was very lighter than the normal launched loads, I wanted that the effects frenantis of the atmosphere practiced a conclusive action: more plan I/you had gone, you/he/she would have stirred more slowly the shuttle that would have come to pick up me.

I closed the fund of the sphere, then I built me and I grabbed with the pick the ring of taking; I started to throw. It was everything rather heavy, now, but that robots it was a boulder. I dragged the sphere on the ground leaving behind a long and wide wake of me; I went me to the catapult, naturally. The cart was not far, but I was in slope; I taken to climb above for the slope strongly aiming the feet against the ground. The piedonis sank of quite a lot about ten centimeters. Three minutes and I was close to the big cart.

The following footsteps were simple: I hoisted the sphere on the shoulders of the robot (ahia, to moments it fell) and I inserted her/it inside the small truck. It suited us precise precise. A spazietto remained on the before, but I was not able he/she anchors infilarmici: I owed first to activate the catapult. There was a panel you orchestrate on the side of the cart. I opened him. Behind the panel there was not anything else other than a great round button. Premise him/it. The cart started, it rippled, starting to wave; therefore it lifted him from earth bringing the side sleighs to embrace the hyperbolic guide, ten centimeters from it on both the sides. It was not some external sign of it, but it began a countdown that would have made to depart the vector of to half minute there. I put again to place the panel, therefore I drove the robot until inside the cabin. You/he/she was not done for guests, only for the vector, and there was a discreet claustrophobic feeling, to be there inside. I moved a leg of the robot so that it grabbed the frontal hook of the sphere and another leg so that it held well firm me.

«Angel, is there still? We don't feel you from some» it said Robin.

The correct moment didn't seem me to chat, but it always needs to be polite with the ladies.

«They are in the cart. They miss few second to the throw» I said.

«Porca poverty» it said Hut.

«It will be an acceleration of the devil» it made Robin. «You are certain to be able to bear her/it?»

"Porca poverty" I also told me me. Now he/she asked me him. So much for curiosity, did me a pair of accounts to calculate that acceleration. I had not reached a precise value, but I discovered enough to conclude that you/he/she would have been the worse blow that inferta had ever been me. The trip toward Mars with my impromptu vehicle was a foolishness to the comparison.

I didn't have the time to worry me. The walls of the cart brutally shook him; I imagined the flames to erupt wildly on the back of the mean. An unbelievable noise that I would never have been able to hear attended, but before I made indeed me of it account the whole universe he/she was closed on me.

# 24.

I woke up myself incapable to move me. I didn't succeed in understanding what had happened: a moment first was later in the capsule of throwing and a moment I found me involved in the molasses, where every minuscule sign was the fruit of capital efforts.

I put some other second to focus the thing there: around me there was a dark sea, made exception for a lot of whitish dots that tapped I break down him/it. From a side, huge, there was the spectacular expanse of the ground of Mars, curved to the horizon and bright for half; the shade advanced as soon as slowly a small sun it seemed to estrange from my point of observation. Behind of me, slightly to the right, over the testaccia of the robot that oppressed me with his/her mass, there was a network of unadorned steel bars: the vehicle of harvest of the mineral ones.

I had been caught, then. I worried me. I stared at Mars and then the skeletal shuttle: it didn't seem pits a relative motion there, but it owed, since I could see the fire of the motors of the aircraft that you/they pushed for the leaving from the planet. I looked with greater attention; yes, we moved there, but not with big rapidities. You/he/she had worked. Somehow, the done calculations were correct: we were not stealing I pour in thousands there the Earth of kilometers the time, but we were slowly doing a great deal it. The shuttle freighter accelerated, however, and our speed, despite the scarce power of the motor, you/he/she would be increased soon. I had earned only some time in more before having to give the definitive goodbye to Mars. It is to my life. But I didn't have to think of us.

«Ehilà, boys» I said, making a bridge among me, the transmitter of long distance on board of the ship and the astronauts in walk in the middle of the sands.

«Angel!» they howled together everybody.

«You are gotten by» it said Robin. «As it is that we can speak to us?»

«Your overall don't have transmitters able to reach me but your ship yes.»

«Understands» it said Hut. «Where you are?»

I looked by instinct around me, to angle turn: I saw part of my universe inquadrettato, defined within the leaden sweaters of a great metallic net.

«It seems both captures as a fish ball.»

Not anybody laughed.

«We gave you for dead, Angel» it said Hut gasping in perceptible way.

Observing him/it scenery that surrounded me, to the light sbieca of the sun, the shuttle that had picked up me appeared really ugly: an object spartano, with the zone wipe away occupies her from the small motor, the plant with structural functions. an only strong pylon to great deal that longitudinally raced, which the net was hooked. and the frontal one with to variegated congerie of tools for the scanning, elaboration and recording of the events. There were also some wings, useless in the space, but necessary in the rare cases in which for particularly heavy interventions of maintenance were asked in the terrestrial hangars. The net of capture was partially refolded, now, but you/he/she could unravel him up to stretch himself/herself/themselves for about ten meters in the zone around the shuttle. I felt me a compressed tantino in those sweaters; I tried to move the robot operating him/it to my way, but I met some difficulties: the half vector full of sand was me I set and it prevented the most elementary movements. I detached the robot from the hook on the vector and I climbed me on the head of the automaton. It was all right. With the strong his/her braccias I got further the big sphere making to ripple the whole metallic interlacement up to the support of the small freighter. Over the bow of the shuttle something blinked to distance: it was another ship, twin of mine, to different hundred meters from me. It was firm waiting for possible throwing. My freighter he was gradually lining up with that more distant, shortly both would have been equidistant from the planet. A vague ideuzza me he/she introduced him to the mind.

«How much misses you for the ship?» I asked.

«Ehm, has arrived ago a few minutes» it said Robin, embarrassed. «We have done before the expectation. We are out now again with the exchanges for the tracked one.»

«We have thought that you had not made her» it added Zeld, seraphic. «We wanted to go to the station of sieve. You/he/she was perhaps escaped you something.»

«Thrown time» I said. «I recommend you to return to the ship and to wait that I/you/he/she give you some information in more. To the worse you will lose few minutes. And the tracked one you can recover him/it another time.»

«Of accord. As you want you» it said Zeld, oddly docile.

So it didn't go: I wanted to talk to them, both because it was useful, both because it made me feel well, but I also had need to titillate my idea. I started two separate trials and I brought ahead them in parallel.

Three hundred meters. It was distant three hundred meters that shuttle, not very more, and its net had not been refolded: it fluttered extending here and there himself/herself/itself in a cloud of lucent sweaters without a particular form. A good target. I fought with the net that held back me; not with my poor strengths, with those of the robot. Nevertheless it was arduous to free himself/herself/themselves from that taking. The robot and I were an alone thing, by now, but it was difficult to make to move him/it in sinuous way inside that trap without entangling none of its protuberances.

«Angel, meant you.» Zeld started. «We have felt your daughter Daylight. You/he/she had tried immediately to contact you after your departure with the catapult. Then you/he/she has tried to call the ship, even if it was not waited that it worked. And instead we have received.»

I finally freed me. I jumped on the sphere, still imprisoned, to study the to make himself/herself/themselves: I wanted to jump from on the other ship there, but it was not what from few; it didn't everything exist anything of similar to a catapult, there. I could use only the strength of the braccias of my robot. However an approximate throwing would have sprung of it, those braccias had not been born for this and the probability that I/you went to insert me really in the net of the remote shuttle it was low rather.

«Ah yes?» it did the myself of the other trial. «And as it is?»

«Worried» it said Robin.

There was another possibility: the limb aspirapolveri of my gigantic friend; if I/you had put me on the back of the forearm, you/he/she would have been able me to shoot away to a discreet speed.

«The point is that. we have understood better who macaws» it said Zeld, slowly. «And what. I am sorry if we have treated you as a simple iron piece.»

You/he/she had really done only him him, but it was not the case to subtilize.

«Approved excuses» it said the other Angel.

It served material to inhale; material that was incorporated from the arm and expelled to high speed over the elbow. If to that point I/you was found me there, the throw to tall pressure would have projected away me so fast to be made the shuttle reach me in a lightning. It didn't serve air, luckily; in the space the thing could work very well however. The atmosphere of Mars is too become less frequent, the aspirator could not found on the principle of the difference pressoria between the mouth of entry and that of exit. This way the arm was a minuscule accelerator maser, economic and easy to build. It grabbed everything how much he/she introduced him in the small zone of space near the orifice of entry and it captured him/it putting again him/it from the opposite side with the whole power of the minuscule Williamson that fed the robot.

My trial gossiper made suspicious him to the sudden one.

«You won't have told her that I was doing?» I exclaimed.

«No» it said Robin. «We would have been. without heart.»

Where did I find him/it the material to inhale? Be', I had loaded him me same on board of the sphere. To who had asked subsequently me him, I would have said that I had foreseen everything since the beginning.

"It is not improvised, in the space" I would have pontificated; or one of the usual lies that him propinano in certain breakers.

With caution, I opened the great mouth of the sphere and I predisposed the arm of the vacuum cleaner. I aimed the arm in direction of the distant net, as he aims a rifle, lining up the forms of it so that the elbow of the limb overlapped prospetticamente to the center of the net. But I had to correct the draught, I knew him/it: at that time I was moving me in comparison to my target with a component of non negligible motion. I had to calculate me that component. I was able of to appraise the times with a lot of precision, luckily.

«You are convinced that is ended, for me» I felt that I said.

«No, it seems you!» it said Robin.

«Bad liar. I have intention to do the possible one to return.»

Fixing the remote shuttle, it was evident that we were approaching there to her of sbieco; I saw the tilted shuttle, with the thin legs, prospetticamente not overlapped. Since the freighters aimed both to the catapult, you/they would have had to stir on parallel routs. Then estranging me from Mars, there would have been a moment in which you/they would be found line up. I knew the dimensions of the shuttles; I calculated with good precision the angle of approach to the remote shuttle, then I focused me on this and I made two squeezes of eyes, for so to say, calculating the half-time of it and memorizing her two positions of the freighter to the beginning and at the end of the interval. I made then the relationship among the dimensions of an anterior leg of my future freighter, as it appeared me from there, and those real; I now knew to that distance was found and I also knew the distance among the colons that the space delimited that I had crossed in the half-time; separated this value for the same half-time and. voilà, here is relative my speed: trecentocinquanta kilometers the time.

I esteemed the distance of the net target in the moment in which the two aircrafts would have been more neighbors: trecentododici meters. Now the unknown less ponderable: that push would have engraved me the aspirator? A datum I had him, thanks to the exabyte: the power of expulsion in continuous operation. I knew my mass, so I could draw my acceleration. But I would have gotten further as soon as I was pushed away and I could not be certain that the throw of sand would always have struck next to my baricentro; so, to have a precise idea of my speed of throwing I would have had to limit at once the push fixed, rather brief. All it took is programming the robot for this. I regulated the aspirator to impose me an acceleration of ventun g for mean according to: I would be squirted away to around one hundred meters the second and I would have employed three seconds to arrive on the net, a little anymore. In the meantime I would have moved back of three hundred meters to the, however, because of the my three hundred fifty an hour. I otherwise directed the arm, folding up him/it to around quarantacinque degrees and aiming at a zone in front of my true objective. I was ready. I had only to wait for the perfect alignment among the two shuttles. I inserted a foot alettato of the robot in the belly of the sphere and I enlivened the inside. A nuvolone of dust surrounded me. Not could use the bucket I helped me with the great pick, that revealed him more profit than I believed. Sands slowly escaped as I wanted. I emptied half sphere and I carried as I was able the material around the aspirator. Sand constituted a kind of all one compact. It seemed a big ball of dust in procinto to be faced by a brave housekeeper.

"Fire to the dusts" I told me.

I placed me correct above the elbow and I made the last jokes on the capoccione of the robot sticking out my braccias to succeed in arriving us. In that while I was being attacked by the funk; I fought for confining her/it inside my trial lobbyist. The succeededs there. I could normally talk to the astronauts.

«We make the typhus for you» it said Robin with heat, but without believing at all me. He/she didn't ask me where I was; it was for delicacy, I believe, and also because it didn't hold him/it remarkable: anything did for them I didn't have escape anymore.

«Thanks» I murmured.

The distant freighter in perspective had the overlapped zampacces, now: the two ships were lined up.

A wince, the time to refold the limbs on my body and there was something similar to a prolonged explosion. I quickly rotated here is on myself, but with the vision to everything field I succeeded in directing very well me: the robot was already invisible, the net that had captured me made smaller him so in hurry to give me a feeling of dizziness. Then, when I was starting to think about the target having missed, I sank in a soft and sticky material that damped my motion, at first timidly, then with the whole virulence of a system calculated for tons of mineral. I decelerated and I stayed me in brutal way. It was a true hit, little missed that lost the senses. Again I had neglected to calculate something that concerned my body,: the strong accelerations or decelerations I was not invulnerable you/they could damage me. I would have had to remember in expectancy it. They wanted us some second to take back me. For the time being I was safe.

«We are reentering in the ship, Angel» Hut informed me.

«Given me a few minutes» I warned. «Soon I will know you to say more something on your companions.»

I received me and I taken to walk on the net; I seemed really a ragnetto, now. I reached the point of attack on the long pylon of the aircraft, therefore I left the net and runs the few meters that separated me from the bow. I regretted it, but I had to make the vandal. I found the center of control of the ship, correct beside the long telescope that aimed toward Mars. I forced the form and I inserted me to the inside. I was comfortable. I revealed the electronics and I saw that I could access the system from the outside, all it took is having the correct cavetto. I didn't have him, but there was around there material that you/he/she would not have served anymore. With my versatile hands I decomposed the components that had to act from navigator for the return on the Earth and them riutilizzai to my comfort. I now had to also open myself to access the inside interface; the form that allocava the exabyte had everything the necessary. Me connettei. You introduced a window from the rough design, with the various ones (few) options. At the end, what could do indeed it was the download of the data; I could not memorize them inside of me: there was a lot of stuff, there inside. However I could view them while I was unloading them, all it took is doing him/it to the correct speed. I started; I suppressed the trial lobbyist, that its duty had done, and I activated a trial that the download replied to the computer of the ship on Mars.

«Hey» it made Zeld. «Here quite a lot data are arriving. Are you you, Angel?»

«No, Little Red Riding Hood. Certainly that I am me.»

I increased at the most the speed of download: I could also view in form very accelerated, eliminating instantly the useless or redundant images, that were the most greater part. He/she remained in mind the main point. The astronauts limited him to record the information without trying to interpret her. I individualized the point of the recording in which the dragonfly had made his/her appearance next to the catapult. The telescope on board some shuttle was of quality: it distinguished very well him the vehicle but not the occupants. I poured again that image on a monitor of the room control of the ship. I heard the murmurs of the personnel but any comment. I continued, keeping on sending images to that monitors to make participates the astronauts. You saw someone who went down from the dragonfly and it entered the station of sieve: it was an alone person. After a few minutes it went out of the station and it operated the crane of the dragonfly; we saw the vehicle that dispatched the operations of load of the ready material to the throwing on the catapult, therefore it effected the real throwing. We assisted to four throwing; as so many were enough, evidently, to polish up the store of stoccaggio that in my visit I had found empty. The siloses were not loaded with chemical solvents; the usual astronaut, went up again alone always on the aircraft, and you/he/she departed for unknown beaches. The useful data ended there, with the disappearance of the dragonfly over the visual field of the telescope.

«An only man. Or woman» it said Zeld. «What it means?»

«Nothing» it made Robin. «You/he/she could be Benson or Lidya or another person that you/he/she has taken possession some vehicle.»

«But whether to make the throwing and not to supply the station of sieve? In beard to the procedure, then» it objected Hut.

I had a precise idea, by the way, but I preferred to hold me her for me.

«Uhm» it said Robin. «You/he/she could grow stronger the thesis of a third character appropriated him of the ship.»

«Let's assemble us on the important things, please» it suggested Hut. «Lidya and Benson where I/you/they am?»

They started to discuss as little boys, so I intervened.

«If you allow, it was not that the correct question» I said lifting the voice. «Your companions could be dead who knows where, or imprisoned, or even they are calm to viaggiucchiare on the dragonfly. If they are dead, you/they can be anywhere, but there is not a great urgency to reach them. If they are imprisoned, I imagine has been captured on the dragonfly. If he is making a cruise among the sands of Mars, they will do her/it on board of the dragonfly.»

«Understands» it said Robin. «We look for the dragonfly.»

«Already» I continued. «If we prolong the astute run that the dragonfly has followed while she was leaving the visual field of the telescope, where we arrive?»

Zeld you have to visualize one some image of Mars, there in the room control, because I felt them stutter" it looks here, you go of there, no here no" and so street, different times. But then they were all in agreement ones.

«Valles Marineris» it said Robin. «Lontanuccia, but there the only other mining concession of the city meets him on the whole surface of Mars, even if it is not active yet.»

«The only logical destination» it commented Hut.

Valles Marineris. A gigantic long canyon cinquemila kilometers, wide five hundred and deep five or you are. It crossed the planet to the height of the equator as a gigantic slash on the surface Martian. Gives his/her enormous structure it was not clear thing you/he/she could have produces her/it: certainly not the erosion from atmospheric agents or water. A similar extension didn't have analogies with the superficial structures on the Earth.

I made an express calculation: appraised the speed of move of the dragonfly and the distances by to cover for the mine, it was to see effortless the time of arrival to destination. Admitted that the shuttle had maintained direction and constant speed, obviously. I communicated him/it to the astronauts and Robin a second it hesitated.

«They have already arrived or they are about to arrive» concluded.

«We go» it also exhorted Hut.

«We are not police officers but., yes, we go down there» it arranged Zeld. «We could save the skin to Lidya or Benson, or to both.»

«Angel, has felt» it said Robin. «We go there. And you?»

«I will get by» I said. «And not to make that face. I see here also her from.»

Beaten tired, but the woman snickered. Then, a light sigh.

«We see us Angel» it said. «We immediately depart, with the ship. There are luckily good places to land next to the mine. Ah, is liked there, Daylight. It seems a good girl.»

«It is him/it. We see soon us» I said me.

It was not entirely after all impossible.

# 25.

Therefore I had the problem to return on the surface Martian in solid and entire form. It didn't seem easy. The shuttle to which I was attached was firm in orbit, and you/he/she would have been for a long time it before the situation changed. I would be dead very first. I had to act.

Besides, something told that Robin, Zeld and Hut would have put soon in the troubles, down there of under. Could I pilot that aircraft up to earth? I had to know more of it, on it, and then to take its control.

The three astronauts didn't know what I had reduced the speed of the vector so that not to quickly be dragged I pour the Earth. They didn't even know that I was jumped on another vehicle, practically firm, and I had the whole time, it does him to say, to analyze hardware of it and software.

But the things were not all right, after everything: among the available options in the interface it didn't seem to be us the possibility to pilot the shuttle. I could turn on and to extinguish the motor, certain; but I could not regulate the power of it, neither I was able to act on the commands to check the direction of march. Pull-ups and spins in atmosphere were to exclude, if I wanted to act from there. I analyzed the whole structure of the aircraft; I would have liked to have underhand the guys that had planned him with I wear my old thick body: it was an a little versatile object, it submitted too much us to the software of edge and there was scarce possibility of diagnostic and manual pilotage.

I could turn on the motor. Then, if I wanted to try some evolution, I had to go of there and to reach a form above the bow, a kind of box of distribution entirely mechanics, from which the connecting rods departed that the inclination of the ailerons and the lower case letter regulated tail.

I looked at Mars, for a long time: the exabyte overlapped the point of the mine to the image, where I would be liked to go. I maintained that signal on the video in permanent way; it was the only reference that I had for deciding the rout, sets that I was able to manage the aircraft.

Mah, if I/you had thought more, I would have remained forever there.

I raced on the longitudinal gun carriage and I unhooked the great net: in the atmosphere you/he/she would have created only me troubles. I tried to push her/it street, but he/she wanted to free me of it of it. I returned to the centralina and I turned on the motor; there was a light push, then I accelerated toward Mars in appreciable way. I continued to accelerate until I was not certain to have produced the decadence of the orbit, therefore I extinguished everything. The fall had set out; if I/you had had more time and knowledges, would have planned a long glide in the atmosphere Martian, slow and linear, but I didn't have there idea of the answer of the freighter to the thin air under. Perhaps the glide was not even possible. My hope was that a light vehicle so evidently also without motor you/he/she would have known how to get by. We were going down; after some moment incocciai in the beginning of the ionosphere: I saw him/it suffered by the extremities of the wings, illuminated by the first fatuous fires. We entered the alive one of the layer overheated by the solar wind, with the speed in increase. The shuttle was not in danger, but I had to predispose me for the control of the rout. I cautiously climbed above the bow and I opened the protection scatolotto of the pneumatic tenditoris; I individualized the system to cogwheels, a true anticaglia, but very reliable. To out motor it didn't work however, but I was able to operate the gears with the hands. I made a test on what had to regulate the tacking; I saw the small back aileron writhe himself/herself/themselves from a side, then from the other. The vehicle didn't not at all hear again any operation, it continued to increase the speed proceeding straight. It blazed everywhere. I grabbed the other command and I worked on the pull-up: I saw the ailerons get up and to lower, and this time the aircraft rippled in appreciable way. Badly. I was now beating in direction of Valles Marineris; I was still away from the surface, but I had the whole intention not to lose sight my objective. I overcame the warmest zone of the atmosphere with joy and I plunged me in the densest air, looking for to govern but without a lot of success. The portanza was ridiculous, I was falling with notable rapidity accelerating.

Here I was now straightening. The aircraft responded even if with great delay.

Almost parallel Spiraleggiai to the surface for a beautiful line, to subsequently lower me without estranging me from mine vertical of target.

I saw well the enormous breaking, now. On the video the dot of the mine flashed, but behind the flag bright it sticks himself/herself/themselves he/she didn't succeed in big that.

The rudder I was fast it didn't allow me that you veer ample, but the descent was so unstoppable that would have been able never to land hoping to stay only of a piece. I didn't have a lot of choice, so I made the only thing that came me to mind: I beat more still. The freighter sensitively waved and to check its direction became difficult. Also with the gears that amplified my strength, the hands had to put her/it to us all to boss the aircraft.

When I was to around three hundred meters quota, I played my paper: although attenuate, to that speed also the atmosphere Martian offered a certain resistance to the motion, so I maneuvered to try a pull-up in vertical. It was my intention, but it was disattesa: the shuttle didn't feather him, it reduced only the inclination of the beaten one. I saw me sold, but I had fortune: if I/you had found the ground I would have broken, but with the belly of the mean I entered the amplissimo stomach of the canyon, going down under the jagged edge and sinking down of some about ten meters to the. Finally the vehicle, now fast as a rocket, it raised again him toward the sun calante and it found again him in vertical; I still attended so that the mean, climbing, it reduced the speed and it almost reached the stalemate. Then I left the grip and I let me fall: I gone down of a meter or few less, then the tail of the aircraft struck me projecting me in before. I fell free, now, and the hit had engraved me a direction in gone out of the canyon that I was not sorry. I in horizontal, I fell as a lead in vertical. I was to about ten meters of quota, the freighter was disappearing there before, going beyond some low hillocks and going down over. Gravity brought down it and disappeared to my sight, of certain coming to break out himself/herself/themselves from some part of my course. I fell to the ground and impattai to around seventy kilometers the time, a speed elevatuccia also for me.

It went very well me: incocciai on the sour slope of a dune, that my trajectory sweetened and made me subsequently lower rolling in insane way. When I reached the feet of the dune, I almost horizontally tumbled and the impact with the ground Martian that followed was not too much dreadful. I was a pebble that rolled and rivoltolava incessantly, without not even the pretension to stay himself/herself/themselves: the only thing that I tried to do was to stay with the braccias around my body not to create dangerous bumps with the ground.

This time I didn't succeed in maintaining the control of my global vision: I suffered the nausea, if I/you had been a more human tantino, I would have left a long wake of disgusting substances behind of me.

I, I.

I stayed me.

Here I was immovable.

I surrendered me to a fantastic feeling of stillness.

My braccias were extended in the sand: I didn't have any intention to remove from her of for the next minutes there.

I had succeeded. Unbelievable.

# 26.

I was too much not fallen in a desert zone away from my objective, but even too nearby; the mine was not in sight, but the exabyte gave her/it for me to course of look.

Then I understood: I was to hundred meters from the edge of the canyon and the mine it was found over, few more than two kilometers in horizontal, but very, very more in low.

I walked with calm up to the ridge and I referred me the eyes: the canyon was boundless, it didn't even seem a canyon; under my feet there was a rocky precipice covered in prevalence by sands color rust that descended gradually, to lines sweet, to lines vertical, for at least eight kilometers to the down.

There under, there was after all a vast flat zone, put in a ditch in comparison to the surrounding lowlands. It was already in shade despite the sun it was not to the horizon yet.

I lifted the eyes horizontally sinking in the panorama; that, beninteso, didn't offer anything: the opposite scarp of the canyon was not in sight, since it was found there four hundred more kilometers in, over the bending of the planet.

The exabyte pointed out where the lowland under of me as the place the mine it rose; from there where I was I didn't see anything else other than sand and rocks. Eight kilometers. An endless descent, to less than not to effect a checked fall. I was not certain to be able of it and if I/you had lost the control I would have found to cross that slope to rout of neck, with the risk to shatter me on some pietrones unexpected.

A sudden shine attracted my attention: on the fund of the canyon, to a pair of kilometers from the lowland, it was risen small but unmistakable the silvery outline of the terrestrial ship. The astronauts had arrived before me.

I didn't have to waste precious minutes, it was time to go down. This meant to walk or to race for a beautiful po.' Questo significava... Anchise.

This time, however, I didn't see badly the thing; if that buffoncellos you/he/she was reappeared, I would have resolved every problem deambulatorio but I would have maintained the necessary lucidity to help the mission to continue him/it. You/he/she was behaved very well, actually to then, even if it rather showed him embarrassing. But I didn't refuse him/it: it was expression of a part of me, perhaps the easiest and creative.

I individualized a favorable run and I started to go down, with my awkward stool walk; I was slow in unacceptable way, so a rhythm dictates me and I increased the walk. I spun better some, but everything I was a punishment. I remembered well the trial in which I had channeled Anchise; I could not recreate him/it, but I encouraged him/it: I created one space of his and I slipped me in a less pretentious trial to do yes that my brain he allowed to go. Nothing. I forced the things, annoyed. I produced me same the bases for an extraneous trial, reserving him resources and motivations. I had of it enough: I continued to corricchiare skidding here and there, going on so I would have reached after all the alert one in two good orettes.

«Anchise, but that devil waits?» I murmured.

Later, as it was of necessity, I noticed that I descended gradually with acclarato sghimbescio.

«Or cotal owner of this body, orsù, is not you distinguished the esitanza of your footstep?» I said me, but not exactly me.

«Eh, thing?» I did.

You/he/she could not be Anchise, it was not his/her style. A trial had departed, but not the his: the voice was courtly and pompous. I perceived the seriosità of base of it. I had put too much there of myself, there inside, inhibiting purity and spontaneity.

«Or insane, it releases the limbs and left cader; if, as it seems, reasons with the seder, are better to lean among the sod. Deh! Without the helmet let's throw of under, to narrow hole as a terno to the lottery.»

It was always my burlesque side some indecent and formal.

«Ehm, already» I said, not knowing whether to encourage him/it. Or if I had to encourage him/it. «Make to see me.»

I abandoned my body, hopeful, closing again me in my contemplative trial. I was about to fall, naturally, but something stuck out a hand that rejected upward me.

«Oplà!» my scholar brother exclaimed.

A big stone that was on the run and we reverted further with a pleasant soft thud jumped. Two hands lifted the body squirting he/she anchors aloft it: I avoided for a hair the protuberances faceted of a rock and rather a third hand you it leaned him to push with more strength toward my destination. I began to is go eradicated and the thing worried me a pochino.

«I now fear: you make resistance, with I frighten him/it; vil flatulence, budellesco wind, you maneuver a great deal your limbs from stupid. Deh! It observes now: we quicken the motion, race of cracked ch'è without scrotum.»

It was not kind but it was damnedly good; perhaps how much Anchise. I started to jump in regular way, with system and rhythm; sometimes it made only him necessary an extra jump to avoid obstacles. I rotated on myself sticking out a hand to complete a leap; when it it was necessary to jump particularly aloft, the hands to capolinare from under the body they were two. I reached the edge of a vertical line, at top speed. I jumped: it was an endless fall of winds meters that you/he/she would have left without breath whoever. When I was about to retouch the ground, my four arts folded up him showing downward the horizontal forearms. Impattai in soft way on the tilted surface and dusty and I taken to skid from perfect skier, until a costone of rocks me he protected from now on. The braccias opened in unison of release, making lever, and they dashed aloft me bringing the thick obstacle to climb over me to continue later immediately the run on a path ciottoloso. I started over jumping reducing at the most the contact with the ground. They were few minutes that I raced, yet I was already fifty-fifty run. I thought that I was indeed an incompetent, but there was luckily a friend that always helped me in the moment of the need.

«Or worthy, be me serene and leave me trust; if you fear less when every thing burns, there where we go we will leave the sign. Deh! Strength and courage, work together; or wise, accresciam the speme» it declaimed the friend.

«Of accord, of accord» I murmured.

The steep one changed structure: it was a great deal always steep, however from now on to me numerous dark and threatening rocks were protected, full of protuberances, prepared in casual but rather homogeneous way; there was a myriad of sandy, narrow and twisted paths, that you/they wound among the rocks crossing himself/herself/itself and melting himself/herself/itself among them, for then to separate he/she anchors him in separate directions. My body took a dusty stradello and followed the tortuosities of it with mastery; I always rolled, but the extemporaneous pushes were in prevalence side. You discard on discards, always to the last moment, they brought me to slanting accelerations that ache bore; not for physical reasons, but because they had the tendency to confuse the few confused ideas that crowded me the mind. I tried to peer at under there for understanding what I would have found, but the vision of the lowland me he/she offered him to lines. I entered the obscurity. The sun was invisible, there, distant as we were from the level of the ground on which I was fallen.

I had the impression of an ample ledge crestata, tall about ten meters, perhaps hundreds, that it coasted along the flat area which I hoped to arrive everything whole. This jagged rocky frame formed an enough wide U that melted him with the portion of ridge that I was going down. It was a stony and sour semicircle that paradoxically surrounded a zone cover of low dunes and sweets; perhaps it was a crater, formed him really at the base of the slopes of the canyon. The exabyte would have given me some information, but I preferred to leave to go me to that daredevil run hoping that it ended soon.

I was perhaps twos bystanders of the run when I, in the occasion of a leap in vertical, the unmistakable forms of the dragonfly under of me; it was distant, leaned on the ground sandy but near to the wall of rock that I crossed. Lights or activity of some kind were not seen; you/he/she was parked there simply.

To flashes I began to notice qualcos'altro: in the ledge, to few meters above the lowland, a dark opening of irregular form hacked him. It had to be the entry to the mine.

It was a natural cavern, and it was not the alone one: that whole almost vertical hanging was covered with ravines, as if something in past had been made to explode down there and numerous and deadly splinters had penetrated the stone of the slant sinking in depth in the rocky layers.

I was about to reach after all the slope, with the humor that improved of meter in meter, when I saw that the last part of the journey was tremendously steep. To that speed I would have detached an along endless leap and I would be blurted who knows me where, there under.

«Alas!» my galloper exclaimed.

It resembled too much me: Anchise would never be worried.

I had to think about something, and in hurry. The trial that had conducted me until there began to upset him, I had to take in fist the situation. I expanded my process of strength: it was not difficult, there was there too much indeed of me inside; riacquisii immediately the possession of all of my faculties and definite for the only thing that I knew how to do well: I braked.

Done ever try to brake on the sand? I skidded in messy way, lifting from now on to me a beautiful ditch in rapids growth. All and four the hands were stretched out in before, with an ability of equilibrium that I would not be me expected. The ditch magnified and was crushed against the solid back of a rock, I slipped on its surface trying to grab its prominences; my fingers were efficient, but I scratched without success only. The rock ended and I found me for air smanacciando.

I was above the last reasonable slope before the abyss; I climbed over him/it for half, of a leap, and concerned on the solid. I succeeded in amortizing with the hands, but I tumbled in decomposed way bumping all the stones and pietroni of the outskirtses. Ugly hits, but at least my speed it damped him quite a lot. Here, few meters and I would be fallen of under. I inserted more deeply the hands in the sand that I was able reaching to touch the stony fund; I anchor, but it was not enough. I was on the edge, scurrying about, almost firm, but inactivity won and lost every grip. I fell. I don't know of how much meters, perhaps forty; it was a slow and soft jump in acceleration. I touched the ground with a beautiful energy and I made a thud in the sand, lifting a spray of wheats and disappearing below of it.

I was firm.

My legs were extended, submerged by the thin sand, and so the rest of my body; only a small part appeared on the surface, that so much that all it took is for allowing the place to observe me in which I had happened.

The wall I was adjacent to from which was fallen; luckily already to few centimeters from this, whereas it sank in the subsoil, a big lake of sands started.

I had been fortunate again.

I was to the edges of an almost circular lowland entirely covered by the dunes; to the opposed side the cavern, with all the hundred smaller sisters. Looking more aloft, above the mouth of the cavern, the ground saliva, but not so steeply. There were numerous practicable paths that brought out of the lowland alleging to the fund more raised again of the canyon. If Robin, Zeld and Hut had come there since, certain you/they were found again to transit for one of that paths.

I cautiously got up me, I shook off away me the sand as a little dog and I taken to walk for that moor; there was no wind, it had to do a lot of cold and the dark it was enough dense. For me it didn't have great importance: I traveled at the most now with my senses level and the infrared component it was me of great help. When I drew near me to sufficiency to the entry of the cavern, notaries a light light on the ground: they were imprints, I succeeded in noticing the heat surrendered to the ground by the astronauts, despite the boots they were well isolated. This meant two things: my sensors were best of that that I believed and someone had passed of there from little time. Sideways, to around one hundred meters from me, there was the dragonfly.

The mottos a look with the whole ampleness of the ghost: the surfaces were cold as the surrounding environment, but the zone of the motors was still well warm; to the infrared ones it shone of proper light. You/he/she had to have arrived from not too long.

I drew near me to the cavern but without entering you. There were around a lot of imprints everything; they were indiscernible in the field of the visible one, but to the infrared one you/they were defined better. I followed the colder series of imprints: crossing her to bashful, I saw that they directed him toward the dragonfly. They were of two different formats: Benson and Lidya, probably. I returned back; the other series of imprints were warmer and recent; they originated from the rocky slope above the cavern. I succeeded in individualizing three separate ransoms: as I had thought, Robin, Zeld and Hut had come down the ridge, a great deal less binding than mine, making use of the many paths that wove up there him until.

All how much you/they had entered the cavern.

A happy rejoining of the crew? I doubted of it. Too many were the problems needed to their mission and too the questions. Because Lidya and Benson didn't communicate anymore and you/they had happened until there? Because I had found disabled the transmitter of long distance, on the ship? And the damage of the tracked one?

But above all: who had riprogrammato the robots in the old mine so that they blocked the footstep to the astronauts that I had assisted? Because an action of the kind, avowedly murderer?

More I reflected it and the answer was evident anymore.

I entered the mouth of the cavern, while with the exabyte I devoted me to the examination of the data that you/they concerned her/it.

# 27.

It was very different from the old mine. You/he/she had never been activated, since the city didn't have then so so many economic resources and the quantity extracted by the other concession Martian you/he/she had always made to sufficiency. In reality, however, the exabyte brought that it was really this the most ancient mine, the first concession that the city had gotten on Mars. You/he/she had not immediately been used for logistic reasons; more difficult to reach, more arduous I dig him/it and the transport of the mineral one.

While I was walking in the cavern I looked around me; the road, enough to regulate, went downward with a discreet inclination. After hundred meters in the semi-obscurity the path did him more breadth and it conducted more and more me through an ample tunnel, until it didn't open wide from now on him to me a cave of great dimensions.

The ceiling was tall about ten meters, made of dark and uneven rocks; every now and then they were detached by earth curved pillars that went to sustain the great structure of coverage with placed side by side times. The rock anywhere it was reddish or brown, often a great deal scabrous. Some ravines pierced the times allowing to glimpse the external light. It was a notable place for charm and dimensions. I continued; the cave was oblong, to elliptic plant very coarsely. Facts other two hundred meters I met a first shelter; you/he/she was set to the wall, a long taller that wide parallelepipedo. It almost reached the ceiling; it finished with a canopy slightly tilted, from which a couple of pipelines departed that the time pierced and they went to the outside. From the shelter a delicate humming originated. To few meters of distance there was another shelter, with the disclosed door; I made capolino with prudence, but inside there was not anything else other than a kind of hammock pressurized by the form to dirigible. the pallet of someone. and to lot of closed armadiature. There is who had had the liver to sleep us, down here, and alone.

There were no other constructions: over, the cave tightened him, showing however numerous fractures of which three particularly ample. There, according to my data, it began the real mine: three twin tunnels that departed with a slabs flooring in stone, almost horizontal, for then to plunge down himself/herself/themselves to the in the bowel of the highland to hundreds of meters, perhaps thousand, from the surface already depressed of the canyon.

A rapids glance was enough for everybody and three the tunnels to understand that there to think about digging and portar by the material was a non indifferent enterprise. Very better the other mine, with the mineral one almost prepared in surface.

When I finally served capolino as the third tunnel the voices they came me. You/they were communicating away radio, it is obvious; that that it was strange it is that before leaning out I had not felt a beautiful anything. Something, the physical constitution of the rocks, probably prevented the presents to transmit over that passage.

Did I enter definite and did I try to transmit to low-power, the same one of the overall, to the ship in the parking lot: a simple impulse, a kind of you are there? conventional. The ship didn't respond: I was isolated also me. I increased the power and I repeated the signal until I didn't hear the pre-arranged one I am there.

A quarter was necessary of the maximum power of which I was able. A trifle, for me, but not for the astronauts. I still lifted the power of my transmitter, so much for safety, and I advanced. The ground steeply went down: there was an amazing ramp of staircases under of me, and it conducted very more in low. The tunnel would have been dark, too much depth to hope in the natural light; there is who had provveduto to position some lamps to wall, weak but functional, every ten meters around. The light that you/they emanated was rather ghostly. I regretted not having opened the first shelter, but I imagined what I would have found: a small reactor Williamson. And that pipes that went out of the shelter toward the outside that stuff was? The motor didn't need nothing, for that that I knew. I began to go down with calm assembling me on the voices. There was a moment of silence. Had I been wrong? There was not perhaps anybody; I had taken quite a lot blows from when I had begun that trip. But no, I felt to slightly pant; any word, now, but someone was laboring. or inflating toy balloons to make carousal. I did for launching a call, but I stayed me in time: I didn't know who pits that guy and even it was not really friendly.

To the third ramp you dictate me some fool: I still felt that light piston, or perhaps more than one, since it had a fast and irregular lilt, but I was certain that I would not be me due to worry. I was under the surface Martian for a buonissima reason, even if I didn't remember with precision what. What knew with certainty, with absolute certainty, it was that of that electrifying adventure I would have owed above all if not exclusively to feel me pleased.

Happiness spread and, when it seemed to overpower me, quickly I channeled her/it in a devoted trial; I left that it continued, putting apart me. I didn't force this time: I had learned the lesson. My body took to balzellare on the steps with ability, without sometimes losing occasion of saltapiccchiare on the adjacent to wall the ramps. The tunnel did even more him steep; from the steps, served as stones of all the dimensions, I gone down on a landing of an alone plate of stone, small, well smoothed and to regulate; in other terms, a landing nanerottolo without a pebble.

"No, curse" I told me" I have to maintain me shiny, I isolate better my trial. here."

I tried not to make to condition me from the simplicity of Anchise: I stopped me and I realized some safety subroutines. I did her with a certain effort, crouched for earth there, but they didn't stink.

Over the landing, the road issued him: there was another ramp that went down down even more and there was a room whose passage without door, in raw stone, it was to half meter from me. On the stipite of the passage a weak brightness blinked, in slow movement.

"It takes some prudence" I thought.

«What imbecility the prudence; you are a fishing-line, fanne without!» it proclaimed Anchise.

«But who devil.» it said to voice that The didn'ts know.

Something went off inside of me.

I entered the good room.

«Pepperepèèèèè!» peperonò Anchise, rivolvendo to all legs on the sandy ground.

In front of. be', we there was to long metallic pipes that appeared on the surface from the ground, three connected respirators to the pipes, three connected astronauts to the respirators and three well put conspirators (ouch, son pains) that them avevan done cracked.

Robin, Zeld and Hut are sat to earth you sue to insufflare oxygen, while Lidya, Benson and a guy that I didn't know, all in spatial overall, observed in silence the three unlucky poor men. Which, besides, they had an ugly aspect: it was evident that for some reason the adduzione of the oxygen didn't work to duty. For that they breathed badly and they seemed destroyed by the work.

«Angel» it murmured someone, but so plain that only I could have felt.

«What devil of trifle six, you?» the unknown guy exclaimed.

Guy turned verse of me and you/he/she observed me with amazement and admiration (" no, porca poverty,' I am trial you/he/she is indeed a snoop. I will keep to better me. zzà, done").

In short it observed me with amazement.

«You don't see him/it, Fei, is only a probe» it said Robin.

«Beep!» I exclaimed, because he/she is known that a probe ago this way. Only that said him/it to words. «Beep! Beep!»

I taken to turn bippando here and there and inspecting everywhere, because to this it serves a probe. I had around this way way of looking me: it was a closed room, more or less semicircolare, from the graven walls coarsely. A small opening there was alone on a wall, shut by a heavy curtain of cloth that rubbed to earth; from the edges of the cloth it filtered some light. The room seemed an enough recent work, the chiseled walls were still dusty. Strolling about I saw that my three friends astronauts were imprisoned indeed: them the portable containers of the oxygen had been escaped and, if they wanted to live, they had to suck from the channel on the floor.

Here to thing they served the pipelines in the shelter than above: they went to fish oxygen from the atmosphere Martian. The plant probably went up again to the first times of the presence of the man on Mars, when he/she anchors the threatening human beings. That residual of a phase by now old it was a perfect jail however.

«A probe» it repeated Guy.

«A round probe surrounds yourself!» Anchise exclaimed.

Raced in circle and it revolved Guy, then it lifted a threatening hand to height chiappale. «And it breaks down yourself!»

You/he/she would have killed him. Anchise didn't have the sense of the proportions: you/he/she would have clawed the overall thinking about making a ragazzata - the height pinch gluteo - but my hands were on the rough and strong one. You/he/she could break that overall in a point difficult to tag after. The man he would be depressurizzato and goodbye.

Also Fei made account: it made a leap in before, disjointed because of the redoubt gravity, and it tried to hold advanced the basin in ridiculous way. Fei looked him wipes away her, but I was not there. I was him before.

«Buu!» it made Anchise.

From behind the helmet Fei visibly whitened; it was paralysed, completely terrorized. I leaned out me verse of him, lifting my body with the four zampettes to the maximum extension. Anchise modulated the voice in way caricature her.

«Suvvia riabbiti, pitocco» it softly suggested to Fei.

The man fixed me rolled. I didn't understand as you/he/she had done one so to capture my compagnuccis; yet something told that it was him the head of the gang. A gang also served as Benson and Lidya, unfortunately. The two astronauts were to mouth open to observe the scene: I knew them from the recordings, but they didn't know anything of me. They fixed me with the same perplexity of Fei. Then inclusive well because the three had overpowered Robin, Zeld and Hut. Behind of them, so and immovable that had not noticed him, there was a robot miner. It was identical to what I had ridden but a great deal more hostile.

«Biiip!» I did him. The robot stirred; Guy commanded him/it in curious way: you/he/she had the right hand in a soft lodging, big as a baseball boxing glove. I could not see his fingers. You have to act in a some way, because the robot it was received by his/her dull immobility and it advanced a piedone toward of me. Anchise could not believe that a qualsivoglia entity, however dull, he/she wanted to hurt him such a pretty being. This way some hesitated too much and only to the last one it avoided to be crushed by the bucket of the automaton. It made a leap of side and, whereas it leaned to the ground an instant before, there was the bucket inserted for half meter and a cloudlet of dust in expansion. Anchise looked at Guy with esterrefatto malice.

«Haemorrhoidal protrusion!» exploded.

Fei whitened for the offense, but it drove the robot toward of me.

«Don't hurt him!» Robin exclaimed, reporting himself/herself/itself to me.

«It is a robottino rompiscatole» it said Benson, speaking for the first time from that I saw him/it of person.

«Already» it made echo Lidya, not too convinced.

The woman was smart, she knew well that a behavior like that of Anchise typically had a quid of human madness.

«Fei» it said Zeld. «Even if it doesn't seem, inside that iron palletta there is a man as you and me.»

«It doesn't interest him, Zeld» it said Hut, frightened. «It is him that you/he/she has programmed the robots because they killed us, in the other mine.»

«To kill? As it would be, Fei?» he/she asked Lidya.

«Nonsense» it said the man making to pursue me from the robot.

I estranged me from all of them, not so much for myself: if I/you had been crushed, you/he/she would have been a terrible loss for the whole human kind.

«Is this way! If it were for Angel to this time we would have remained without air, there inside» he/she explained Robin.

«I won't allow that this mine begins working» it said Fei. «New Sealon doesn't have to prevail.»

«I/you/they have been paid to send you the loads with the catapult and to disappear. Nobody has spoken to me to kill» it objected Lidya.

Anchise easily shifted an attack of the robot and takings to corricchiucchiare all around with a good game of legs.

A window opened me, great and central: it showed an error of system, but I didn't succeed in understanding what. I went to look for the numerical code in the exabyte.

«Let's make her/it simple» it said Fei turning to Lidya; the hand of the robot leaned on the helmet of the woman. «You regret to gather you to your friends?»

The robot created a small pressure on the neck of Lidya and that you have to lower for not falling; Benson drew near her, but not too much.

«Your oxygen. You put to earth the container» it told her.

Under the threat of the robot, took Lidya a mouthful of air, the backpack removed from him and set him/it to earth; in silence, the woman went to look for him a free connector and his/her own respirator attached you. Benson grabbed the backpack and put him/it on one side, away from the prisoners. None of them would have been able to appropriate of it and to connect himself/herself/themselves in time with his/her own respirator; not with the lack of oxygen of which it already suffered. Lidya was the more one in form, but only for the time being.

«Benson, goes to take a rock spite. There is some too hostile people, now» it commanded Fei.

With reluctance, Benson went out of the room and returned after few instants with a long steel putrella that finished to point. A deadly oggettino that the man was turned among the hands with cross air.

«This line of oxygen works badly. Do you want it stuffed out all, it is not so?» it said Lidya. «I/you/they have been a fool. It is not a matter of money.»

«It works very well» it said Fei. «We have reduced only the course of the air. It hardly has to maintain you in life. I don't want that you are in big form.»

They were not him/it of certain; with the addition of Lidya the things were also worsened: now they were four the astronauts to inhale from the old system. And you/they would still be worsened: if we gave the time to reflect to Fei, account would be made that didn't stay him anything else other than it stuffed out all. You/he/she would not have been antiseptic as the rescheduling of the threatening robots, however; you/he/she would have had to look well us while we were throwing the cuoias. Perhaps it was for this that hesitated. Or, it was not more simply a particularly bright type,: my presence had distracted him, I knew him/it. He/she wanted first to frame me. Then you/he/she would have had the full control.

I found the explanation of my inside alarm: the code pointed out a decrease of nourishing to the brain. I had need of it eats up. Oxygen or my nourishing intruglio. I had lost the sense of the time on Mars. I had been so involved by the mission that I had forgotten to have some necessities. I had to return to the place of my ammartaggio and to assume that that it served from the reserves that I had transported from the Earth. A word, approves the situation. Anchise lost boldness, doesn't know if because of my physical difficulties or for qualcos'altro. I felt his/her trial that slowly diminished.

«Four miserable loads of iridium for us are not anything» it observed Fei with arrogance. «But for New Sealon, hungry as it is of energy, I am everything.»

I stayed me master of my body. The robot estranged from Lidya and started to draw near to me.

«You have been you» I said me, turned to Fei. I was again myself. «You have destroyed the reserves of iridium of the city.»

Fei heard my voice but it didn't understand from where it came; you/he/she had received the burlesque inflexion of Anchise, until then.

I threw him a stone, that in the redoubt gravity Martian squirted above his head without giving sign to bend his/her own trajectory. The stone struck the wall and fell to the ground. I didn't want to strike him/it, only to introduce me.

«I am me, Angel» I said.

Fei fixed me with acridity: robot or human that was, it didn't have any intention to let another throwing try me. The robot miner he directed verse of me with decision.

«Not me personally» it said Fei. «Others as me.»

«Globalisti?» I did me.

Fei started laughing.

«And you, Benson. Are you prepared to kill?» he/she asked Lidya studying him/it from his/her prone position.

It already had an a little reassuring fiatone.

Benson looked first her, then the other astronauts, then the long spite among his/her hands.

«He/she thinks of us Fei» it said. «I don't get dirty me the hands if you don't force me.»

The robot opened the two braccias. the bucket and the pick. and it rushed me against. Even if it was not fast, I didn't now succeed in moving me to the best of myself. Without the motor abilities of Anchise I could not do anything else other than ciampicare here and there from good stool. The robot struck and I moved me in time, just dirtied by the earth removed with the bucket.

«You are that of the Whip, then» I said me, turned indifferently to the two enemies.

Fei remained an interdicted instant, then it opened wide the mouth. It had a funny expression of wonder.

«You are you, that of the Whip!» it exclaimed. «You had another body, but you are you. You/he/she has spoken all New Delon of it.»

It was so, therefore. Macché Globalisti: New Delon, our city sister and our usual economic avversaria. There was New Delon behind the attacks in our territory and this pie on Mars.

«Angel, but certain» it added Fei. «You have succeeded in darkening the disaster of the Whip with the heroism of the volunteers and the sense of the duty shown by an iron man.»

Of what did he/she speak, Fei? To New Sealon the press had spoken of me, but not so much. Evidently to New Delon I had done more sensation. Or, perhaps, our authorities, mayor in head, from that sensation they had me favorite. All were involved in nice way with me, in effects.

«There have been many corpses» I told low voice.

I quickly moved me toward the wall avoiding the position of the robot.

«I ache of it» it said Fei. «The wars are so.»

«And you, Benson?» he/she asked Robin. «You are also a damned warmonger you?»

«A researcher» it said the man with an indication of irritation. «Something that the cities don't want, on Mars. This place for you is made only of mines. However Mars is a planet as the Earth. A planet. To study and to understand. I have tried to make to finance me the searches from your administration. They have started laughing. New Delon has not laughed.»

Ambition. Parochialism. Money. The usual enemies.

«A thing I don't understand, Fei» I intervened, extending sott'occhio the robot. You/he/she was setting me in an angle. «For thing all this? For it stuffed to make a bad impression? To see the people that suffer?»

«Annexation» it said Fei, triumphant. «You have darkened our prestige. New Delon will return great, correct the double one. When your administration will have to admit its impotence and the failure of your New politics Delon it will come to save you. We will be an only city. Control will be ours.»

Its reasons were absurd; that was an ambitious guy, certain, but also disturbed.

«Of all the justification that I could feel, this is the more cretina» I said.

Fei raged him.

The robot had inserted me, by now. An only possibility stayed me: I threw myself from a side and I avoided the hit of pick, that my hand grazed going to break down himself/herself/themselves on the wall. I rolled for a meter and I rose again me, taking the only way out that I/you could use: the small protected opening from the drapery. I dashed me inside and I tumbled to earth; the curtain was closed again after me. There was a hot flash of light: the environment was the more illuminated of the whole mine. On the walls there were lighthouses aimed against the ground; they scattered everywhere a pleasant yellowish light that made to also shine the building perimeter. The ground was unusual, it seemed worked: I leaned on an astute and ample furrow, well shaped, among two transparent semisferes that covered something fixture in the ground. The two semisferes were externally covered by droplets and a white-grey patina, as if the inside were heated. In effects, did my infrared vision tell me that the whole room was warmer, but the peak of the heat was there, under the caps set to protection of. thing? I drew near me to see better, up to lean me against the damp surface of a semisfera: inside there was something of known, but I had to make an effort to identify him/it so much it seemed absurd that was found there.

Asparaguses.

There were asparaguses anywhere, astute and big more than those that I once loved to eat. They plunged in the terrestrial Martian.

To the center under the cap there was a small black lip that sprouted; a lower case letter glimmering drop hesitated for an instant, then definite to fall from the extremity leaving a craterucolo in the point of impact.

I followed the line of caps with the look: you/they were regularly prepared according to the typical scheme of the gardens; each had his/her vegetables - not only asparaguses - and each was irrigated. At the end of the lines a plastic pipe was seen rather grossotto that from a side it issued him with more minute pipelines, every to service of a line, and from the other one it estranged from the ground to reach. beh, that was the most greater surprise, for me: paradoxical but true, the pipes connected him to an engaged common faucet in the wall. Just as on the Earth.

«Water» I mechanically said me.

«Yes» it said Benson. «Normal running water.»

The robot was entering; the curtain was removed and its pick leaned him against the ground to support its weight; the automaton folded up him, too much great to enter from the small entry with my same facility.

«But. the cold.» The objecteds, in danger but nevertheless curious.

«There is not cold, there» it said Benson. «A man could be in sleeves of shirt in that room, you/he/she would need alone a respirator. Behind that wall there is a deposit of almost lukewarm water; a natural condition, we don't have anything to do with it.»

The robot had gone beyond the opening; I saw the face of Fei that peered at from the other place to drive the robot toward of me. Benson had remained to his/her place, you/he/she could not see me but it was able well to imagine the amazement that I tried finding me in that room. The robot made some footsteps verse of me.

«Voialtri.» it said Benson with disgust. «You don't know anything of Mars. Yet you/he/she has happened you in concession the most interesting mine. I had suspected him when New Delon sent here me to snoop on your ownerships. In the sorvolo of the zone I was almost killed by the geysers.»

«Geyser? I have felt speak of it» I said me.

I wanted to make to chat him/it to that point. If we had gotten by, those information would have been important. But I especially wanted that it had to think to other, rather than to suppress us. Because this they wanted to do; if they didn't have provveduto before I also arrived there me, it was because you/they had not found the way of informing and to convince Lidya. They knew that she would not have directed to kill.

Until now however Fei if the era taken only with me, and I had intention to keep on maintaining their attention on my person until I was able.

«Black geyser» I said me outdistancing me from the robot. «I/you/they have been sighted since the first explorations of Mars. Solid ammonia, that heated by the sun sublimes in gas to tall pressure able to break the superficial ice. Throws able to shoot sand and dust to a height of eighty meters, with a speed of two hundred the time.»

«No» it said Benson arousing enthusiasm himself/herself/itself. «I intend true geysers. Water and vapor.»

«Of what is speaking you two?» Robin joined in conversation.

«Shuts up, lady» I brusquely said me.

It didn't have to make himself/herself/themselves involve in the conversation, my goodness. The three prisoners were invisible anymore, it was better.

«The terrestrial geysers are siphon structures surrounded by impermeable rocks» I said me. «First water goes down, it heats him for the presence of a neighbor room magmatica, but it doesn't vaporize because of the strong pressure owed to the depth. Then water goes up again toward the surface, where the pressure is smaller. Then it vaporizes. The period of the throws is due to the necessary time so that the siphon him riempia.»

«Very good» it declared Benson. «The mechanism is here also the same. Only that doesn't deal with volcanism, Mars has been being inactive for quite a lot time. The source of heat is another: the heart of Fetonte.»

He/she anchors this Fetonte. Benson and Berliz would have had to be friends: they had the same ostentation.

The robot tried to catch me, but I jumped in the middle of the cultivated field. I was trying to think; I climbed without it stuffed case on one of the transparent caps but that crowds my weight. Not that of the robot. An instant after I had gone down of it, one of his/her enormous feet penetrated the cruet destroying her/it completely. The robot ploughed the brown soil among the dark bayonets: of the vegetables it made a spicinìo (if you/they had been spinaches, you/he/she would have been a spinacìo).

«Careful!» it said Benson turned to the best man.

«Bushels I calm. It is a robot, I cannot do a job of until.»

The robot he was instigating: with open braccia and the knees slightly folded up, meeting it raced me as was able rubbing to earth with bucket and pick; other two caps departed and I felt the useless invectives of Benson. But Fei was definite. The robot was me I set, the wide open braccias not to leave I space me, and I made the only thing that I was able to the moment: I jumped him in I set. I jumped on one thigh of his and I climbed me on him, I grabbed on me to his/her taurine neck and I jumped on his head. I crossed with a finger a quarter of neck of the giant and the mechanism it went off bringing the content of the skull in before on a metallic tray. Fei inveighed against me and made to make upward a jump to the robot, and then another, trying to crush me against the ceiling. For my fortune the robot didn't succeed in jumping very well; however he/she knew very well pesticciare, with its piedonis, and other vegetables were shed among the furrows of the garden. As the jumps were not enough Fei it tried with the rotations on the bust: I didn't know him/it, but the robot could rotate on same of trecentosessanta degrees, leaving the basin firm and twirling with the whole torso. It began to turn taking me of surprise; lost almost the grip and the automaton increased speed leaving seizes me to its limbs as a frightened cat.

But Fei had a problem: he/she didn't succeed in maintaining the automaton in equilibrium, this way. You have to compensate its sbilanciamento with a movement of legs that nearly produced the total destruction some caps on the ground, with good peace of Benson that howled furious. Not more resistetti: the centrifugal strength added to a certain feeling of weakness they prevented me from still staying seized. My fingers loosened him and I squirted away striking strong the wall of rock.

I had happened next to the entry of that room, so I made a mental effort and I acted on the braccias raising again me. I slowly went out. I had some second, for the robot it was not immediate to follow me, big as it was. I found me in front of the others, torpid, incapable to walk really. I deposited me to earth and it begins to roll giving me a push after the other with the hands. Pathetic.

At Fei and Benson were looked perplexed; they were not sure to be able to graze me, they preferred that to me he/she thought the robot. What, besides, you/he/she was arriving. I tumbled until on the landing and I hesitated, uncertain on the to make himself/herself/themselves. Then I had an idea: that men had acted to damage New Sealon, but without jeopardizing New Delon to the eyes of the world. You/they could not allow that I informed the Earth of their manoeuvres.

«I consent me for a few minutes, boys» I exclaimed, with a spocchia that I was well afar to try. «Here the radio doesn't take, I look for a more proper place and I transmit to New shoot Sealon her of Benson and Fei. I have recorded all, here inside.»

The two men looked again him.

«The radios don't work down here» it said Benson.

«Those of the overall» it beat Fei. «You have seen an overall on that iron bottle?»

They exchanged the evident gestures: Fei would have caught me, Benson would have held me busy to speak for preventing to communicate me with New Sealon. They didn't know what, if I/you had wanted, I would have been able to bait a dozen of trials in parallel while I was defile me; I was able to contemporarily chat with all the relative kinsmen and they.

I looked around me: the best thing was to go up again in surface, but I didn't feel me in degree to manage my legs. This way I made the only thing that I knew how to do to the moment: a spintarella dictates me and I united the limbs against the body. I began to go down the staircases bouncing on the steps.

«I thought that I was a more curious type, Angel» it said Benson. «You have not asked me of Fetonte. I will speak of it me.»

Oh, no, still. If it were that that planet was already destroyed, I would have destroyed him me.

Benson started his/her lesson.

«Fetonte was a planet with a next orbit to that of Mars. When exploded Fetonte its various parts squirted in all the directions getting further himself/herself/itself to big speeds. For the nucleus of Fetonte it was different. Heavy as it was, sets in the center of the planet, it disintegrated him slowly distributing himself/herself/itself in the space. It struck Mars in many points. A part, thick, it literally rubbed the planet slashing him/it. It is so that Valles Marineris is created. An open wound in which the oceans of Mars fell him disappearing under the surface. For this the crust of Mars supports on caverns: the strength of the impact created a terrible heat until in the depths of the planet. The rocky crust inflated him, then cooling himself/herself/itself was compacted becoming as porous. Some of that pore, small on planetary staircase, but in certain enormous cases for us, they were filled with the water of the old seas»

It was good to invent lies, almost as Anchise.

Or did he/she speak seriously, that man?

I was stupidly bouncing from some, when I saw that more aloft the robot followed me and you/he/she was tailed in turn by Fei. Benson continued.

«But the nucleus of Fetonte is not limited to engrave the surface of Mars. There is also fixture. Part of the heart is here under, heat and button. It distributes heat to the underground ocean. The room that you have seen, with the plants that you have contributed to destroy, it relatively confines with a knapsack of small water. When I/you/they have entered for the first time a minuscule rivulet there it was glimpse. I didn't succeed in believing us. Then the robot has worked the walls, you/he/she has found and defined the confinements of the knapsack.»

I kept on falling, I went down in a zone where there was not even by now more illumination. The steps finished, there was only a tunnel with disconnected flooring, pietrame shed and little sand. The robot he was approaching and my body had just beaten against what seemed the terminal: a wall of rock I metal. To the infrared ones I observed immovable the man and the robot that followed there me under. They were in difficulty, fifty more meters on. The end of the steps meant to walk with a lot of greater caution, especially for Fei. They didn't stir in the total obscurity: the robot had a light pettorale, rather weak. It was not big that, but however it was enough for not stumbling.

It was time to stop her/it with the gossips on Fetonte.

«Tell me a thing» I intervened. «Because this violence? You could leave that the things followed their course. The other our mine had lost the vein. New Sealon was in difficulty however. For you it was all right, Fei.»

«No. All other» Fei responded panting. «Once dismessa the exhausted mine you would have come here. You would have discovered the heart of Fetonte. They are everywhere bits of it, all it takes is digging. An endless quantity of iridium.»

«You would have destroyed my job, my searches» it added Benson. «Agronomy Martian. The terrestrial Martian is more fertile than that earthling in this zone. Think of us: endless fields of cereals and vegetables under the surface. Boundless alimentary resources. For my worth. With my profit.»

«If you had been successful» I did me, «New Sealon would also have granted you everything to have the iridium that the maids. This mine would have become of New Delon.»

«But we have been successful» it said Fei. «They remain only of the particular ones to systematize. Robetta.»

As the astronauts and the undersigned.

The robot was me I almost set, you/he/she had quickly crossed the last meters: Fei was taking us the hand.

I didn't succeed in moving me. The window of alarm damages it flashed in front of me. The robot stopped him for an instant, it lifted the pick, it struck. I jumped down to the for desperation. The pick inserted him in the wall of stone, deeply; the robot didn't succeed in freeing himself/herself/themselves, so it began to strike with the bucket around the point in which the pick was plunged.

It struck and ricolpiva with a noise of hell.

The pick came out together with some quintal of rocks. The automaton brought the bucket on me, but I made another side leap. The robot could not stop the bucket in time; this inserted him in the rock as it was butter, the blade penetrated as you/he/she had made the pick. The robot changed destroyer arm: the pneumatic hammer to the place of the pick. It hammered wildly around the bucket making to squirt away a lot of pebbles and stones of more serious dimensions.

A terrible trembling, then a whole wall collapsed flaking himself/herself/itself as pits of cardboard.

Over that I didn't see that obscurity.

I looked at Fei: the man was not interested neither to me neither to the mechanical monster; you/he/she had drawn near too much, you/he/she had not foreseen that fury demolitrice. You was looking I nauseate him/it in the exact point in which a pebble was penetrated in the overall. It had a terrorized expression: you/he/she was losing air and he/she didn't know whether to mend.

The robot kept on demolishing: it was now standing not because under the control of someone, but because it was the rock same that sustained him/it; it waved everything, its hammer didn't end her/it to devastate the wall. It fell a pair of rocks from the ceiling and one broke the helmet of the man. Fei wheezed and collapsed to earth with the head tilted in unnatural position, the destroyed face and the wide open eyes. The robot continued the work of shattering.

I threw above me with my residual strengths: I could not allow that the backpack that Fei still brought on the shoulders lost the whole precious oxygen. I slipped toward the dead body and I grabbed the backpack. I closed the valve, then I unhooked him/it from the body of the dead person estranging him/it from him.

A pandemonium has happened: lost contact with the ground, had the perception above that the world put on under. The rocks grazed me jumping around me and some struck me making to squirt me as a twig here and there; then something of fluid and pleasant it damped the tones of that hammering making every gradual and velvety movement. The rocks softly fell, I now had the time to move me of side to avoid the worse.

It was matter of few instants: an enormous quantity of water had run over me dragging me street together with dusts and rocks.

Then, the things slowly, settled in.

I don't know how much he/she wanted us, probably few second.

When the world calmed down, I still felt me very confused. I was firm.

I tried to make local mind.

I was me stretched out on a sea backdrop.

The robot was next to me, inactive. The backpack of the oxygen was incredibly still in my hand.

Above of I saw the last ramp of the staircases submerged, but the preceding one was still exposed Martian to the air.

«Thing has happened?» he/she asked alarmed Benson. «Here you/he/she has started waving all.»

I was absorbed in the water of one of the knapsacks of Benson, it was evident. That that irrigated the garden. The robot had destroyed the diaphragm that separated of it and the knapsack you/he/she was expanded englobing that last room and part of the staircase.

Water was practically firm, now.

I was not able to move me. I was not able to help anybody.

Benson would have killed my friends; I, was as for only matter of time. I could not drown, I would be dead for the difficulties. Fantastic.

# 28.

I had to answer to Benson, but I hesitated; if I did him/it I would have had to invent a lie, it was not the case to inform him/it about the death of Fei. What would you/he/she have done then? You/he/she would probably have closed the discourse with the prisoners and you/he/she would have gone.

No. Fei was alive; however, I could not reply his/her voice. I would have been able, with the time and other circumstances. I could speak only now. Or to keep silent. But there was perhaps an interesting alternative.

«Fei, for once uses that damned robots in useful way» I said, with low-power and foundation disturbed to beautiful mail. I attended some second in silence.

«If he/she wants here to go out from, it is well that gives me straight line» I taken back, burdening the voice of a beautiful dose of irritation.

«Fei?» Benson exclaimed.

«Of accord» I did me. «But sees to be calm. I know him/it that I have the transmitting station most powerful of his. I will try. Is there someone who feels me, up there?»

«I feel well enough you. What have you done to Fei?» he/she asked Benson.

"I have killed him, you/he/she has done alone rather everything," I had the temptation to answer.

«Sorry, Fei. It also feels him/it her. Or they have gone to a party without warning, or their transmitting stations don't succeed in overcoming these damned walls of rock.»

It was believable, running away I had crossed at least centocinquanta meters in vertical, surrounded by those same boundaries that created problems of communication toward the outside.

«Curse» it murmured Benson.

I attended some instant for lasciar to intend that he/she spoke Fei.

«This is the good idea that has had today» I said. «Rather, the only one. I will do as it says. Only holds that robots away from me. Therefore. if someone than above it feels me: there has been to collapse. The robot. It is heavy as a house and you/he/she has started to idiot smanacciare. We are well but we are surrounded by the rocks. The robot is a raw too tool. You/he/she cannot help us, it would make us collapse all I set. They serve two people. One on the shoulders of the other to remove few from few the batteries of rocks that prevent us from going out.»

I allowed to flow some second.

«It is kind» I taken back. «If you have not felt shoots her/it of Fei, I will repeat her/it me. And if you won't feel mine. beh, goes to the devil all how much. To benefit of Benson": you come to take me curse. And he/she leaves here this marble ache succeeded." If I can add something of mine, alone caldeggerei the first suggestion.»

Benson hesitated.

«You have intention to let them to decay down there?» it incited Lidya.

«Not to hinder you» it said Benson. You/he/she was intensely thinking. «They serve two people. I could go down and to give the backpack of the oxygen of Lidya to one of you. But who tells me that it would not try to rub me? No. Two will go of you with the backpack. Only that. You will do some for one with the oxygen. You free Fei. Considered that I remain here together with the others two with this lance to point, therefore nothing jokes.»

«I will go» it proposed Lidya. «I am more in strengths.»

«And Zeld» concluded Benson.

They followed few instants of preparations; they had to systematize the backpack on the two shoulders of one, then to predispose for an easy alternation in the aspiration of the oxygen.

Unfortunately that so you/they were not done for contemporarily serving two people, the astronauts would have had to give him the change doing each a beautiful inspiration for then to connect the other. A bother I don't deprive of risks. I remained waiting for the events; I was stretched out on the fund of the small sea that had invaded us, the atmosphere it almost seemed unreal. There was no complete obscurity, also in the field of the visible one; I could notice the diffused brightness of the last lamps of the vain staircases, even if I was not able to directly observe her.

Their light bounced on the walls and came up to me very attenuated. Water was full of delicate reflexes.

It was not quite turbid: apart the slaughter house that the robot had done, there were well few dusts in that environment missing any erosive agent.

In the water they slowly stirred lower case letters figures umbratili: they had to be the fragments of the robot, that giant was gone out battered from the impact with the rocks. But there were also splinters of pietrame, thin and to read, that you/they slipped among the billows; they skated downward in their gradual and irregular motion. The cavern he was still arranging.

I repeated more times the application of help, simulating sour conversations with Fei, and I remained in attended with patience.

# 29.

Lidya and Zeld were going down, not very quickly, because of the continuous exchanges that did on the graft of the respirator in the backpack of the oxygen. Zeld wore him/it, so Lidya had to be him near to succeed in managing the thing bothering him in the deambulazione.

I saw them arrive aloft there in the ramp, two shining stains in the infrared one. It was matter of instants, then you/they would have realized that under of them there was a lake neoformato.

Would Lidya have informed Benson? Not the credetti. I had noticed his/her reaction to the manoeuvres of Fei. Lidya would not have killed. And then, Fei had excluded her from his/her graces treating her/it as one of us. No. Lidya was from our part. It owed. However, even if did Lidya have the best intentions, thing you/they would have said Zeld and she in front of the collapse and to the unexpected lake? An exclamation of amazement and Benson it was enough you/he/she would have known that there had been more radical upsettings of that that I had allowed to intend.

«You make silence a moment, Zeld» I said, hoping that the man understood me. «You are an awful gossiper. I succeed in feeling you even if very more plan speaks to me.»

Zeld had to have been amazed but it didn't say anything; with the shared oxygen to turns, there was little desire to uselessly waste him/it. Not the mottos time to recover himself/herself/themselves.

«Would like here us Robin, her him that it would make you star silent.»

It was an application of help: I didn't confide very in the intuition of Zeld, but Robin was another thing.

«Strength, Zeld, from the straight line. Angel has to be tired and wounded» it said the voice of Robin.

You/he/she had talked to low voice, as if you/he/she turned to itself same expressing an own hope. Benson didn't make suspicious him.

I was thankful to the woman: you/he/she had said wounded, not damaged.

I saw that the two astronauts were stopped to the sudden one: as I knew, you/they had heard very well both me and Robin.

"He/she thinks Zeld, he/she thinks." But there was Lidya with him. Also she was brisk; it was enough only that took the correct decision on the part from which to be. Us or Benson.

I looked at the figures of the two astronauts, there aloft; both were gesticulating, in the semi-obscurity. I hoped that Lidya explained to Zeld that didn't owe aprir mouth.

«Angel you can feel me?» it murmured Lidya under the threshold of the audible one.

He/she didn't take me to the unprovided one: I had already made to depart a process of amplification of the signal with filtration of the troubles. I had to eliminate the background, annoying and inevitable noise to separate the useful audio content. For a man it was impossible, for me it was a trifle.

«Yes» I said. «Now I succeed in seeing you, at least I believe.»

«You want that we don't make us feel from Benson, true?» it said plain Zeld conforming himself/herself/itself.

I breathed a sigh of relief. Benson would have heard only my voice. And, above all, Lidya had decided well.

«Yes» I repeated. «You are really you. I succeed in seeing you from a forellino in the wall of rocks that surrounds me.»

«Here Benson. Do you feel me? To that stings you are?»

Nobody offered word. Badly.

«How you want that answer you?» it said Robin slightly panting. The departure of Lidya and Zeld you/he/she had given to Hut of the oxygen and she in more. «It is obvious that they don't feel you. Put yourself calm and it waits. For that boys. The hopes only that to breathe is not to problem.»

Smart Donna. Zeld and Lidya understood the antiphon and they the walk to avoid excessive puffs: troubles if Benson had understood that the radios of the overall were able to operate there also under.

«Fei is dead» it murmured Lidya.

It was not a question.

«Unfortunately.» The said slowly. «I cannot move, boys. I will drive you up to us. There is little light, the staircases and the raw rocks that follow they are slippery. Look you at the feet.»

They certainly did him/it, by now they handed the maximum attention to my words knowing that they were full of double senses.

I saw that they jammed just in time not to bathe himself/herself/themselves the shoes. From good professionals they were not made to escape exclamations of surprise.

«And now?» it whispered Zeld.

«Thrown yourselves» I suggested.

The respiraton sott'acqua worried only me: their respirators had filters and valves, there was no danger to drink, but the movements would have been awkward and slow; better to drive I pour them of me as soon as possible.

I still held clawed the backpack of Fei.

They dipped in the water and there for there I felt me lost: I didn't see them anymore. I lost hits, without realizing me of it I was limiting me to recepire in the alone range of the visible one.

I widened the ghost in tall and low frequency and notaries two interesting things. The first one they were the astronauts, well visible to the infrared ones, that were slowly walking in wrong direction, but not of a lot. The second was a tide of bright objects that you/they got excited around them and to me.

My goodness. Now I was me to have to check my reactions: those shades were not so. dark. To the ultraviolet one they appeared luminescent. They didn't fall, they moved knowingly him in all the directions avoiding when necessary the true deposits. I eliminated the infrared one for an instant: Zeld and Lidya were distinguishable however, they also shone of ultraviolet reflexes them.

«You rotate to the left of thirty degrees. We are here» I shouted.

By now they were near, unaware to be observed by myriads of sea bestioline, perhaps incuriosite from two astronauts and a spherical idiot.

Lidya saw me. I was stretched out with the extended zampettes, unarmed: a pathetic ragnetto. The woman quadrated me for an instant.

«How it goes, Angel?» it whispered.

I made thumb toward. Then I pointed out what I still held in fist. Zeld illuminated him. Taken the backpack and it applied him/it to the back of Lidya that handled to connect the respirator.

«Fantastic. Thanks, Angel» it said Lidya with a fil of voice.

«Where Fei is?» he/she asked Zeld.

For me it was easily identifiable, the orange overall of the poor thing was to few meters and now I used all the frequencies of which I was able.

I pointed out lengthening an arm.

With my surprise, it cost me a perceivable work.

Zeld grabbed the body of Fei and Lidya it grabbed me. I let her do. Of the return to the dry land I have a confused memory: the two astronauts started over walking in opposite direction with the load of a corpse (Fei) and of a dead weight (me). It was not easy for them to go out of the water; the rocks were slippery and certain indeed Fei, with its mass, it didn't help. Wanted us the whole professionalism of an expert of the gravity Martian as Zeld to climb the ramp without falling. The two him concessero one minute of standstill, then they started over climbing. The sea with its luminescences greeted there me from under and I abandoned me on a shoulder of Lidya.

«What we do now? Benson holds under control Hut and Robin» it murmured Zeld.

You/he/she was flattered not to make to rest me.

«We go above with calm» I said me, with normal voice, making to also hear me from the people than above. «You help Fei.»

«Is coming? Do you feel me now?» Benson joined in conversation with anxious voice.

The two astronauts looked me and I made sign with the hand not to answer, not yet. They nodded.

But. from when in here they paid I know much attention?

Zeld dragged the body of Fei against the steps without so many compliments.

I don't exactly know how much he/she wanted us; every two minutes Lidya and Zeld made a standstill to save energies and not to have the fiatone.

Then my brain him taken a break. I want to say that it was as if the world he was extinguished, I don't know for how much. I awakened me when shook Lidya me brusquely.

«Angel? Angel? Do you feel me?» it repeated, murmuring.

I touched her the shoulder with the hand. I had recovered.

«What we do now? We are on the landing, behind this wall there is Benson.»

Boys, were rather simple.

«We quietly enter, together» I said.

Zeld and Lidya didn't make obbiezioni, they stormed in the room dragging me and the body of Fei.

You/they had not even tried to discuss my suggestion.

In an instant taken vision of the thing: for earth there were Robin and Hut, tired and unarmed; Benson was behind of them tightening with useless energy his/her sharp spite.

In front of him there were us; I was perched above Lidya, Zeld and she they were standing, immovable, he was slowly covering with a translucent patina of ice.

The body of Fei was to the feet of Zeld and its status of dead body was evident polieviscerato: the head was a vague memory of itself same and the rest of the body it was not better. Anywhere the ice he/she insinuated him turning the clots of blood into vermilion aggregates multicristallini.

With the low atmospheric pressure that that it stayed some face you/he/she had done in time to swell himself/herself/themselves, before the losses of the bodily fluids arrested the trial.

Fei was a horrible puppet, an alone manikin vaguely from the human aspect.

I saw in the eyes of Benson the amazement, then horror and anger.

«Benson, take yourself an instant» I said. «Nobody will stir. You are to the sure one.»

The man looked around him and grabbed the spite with more conviction. It stared at the prisoners.

«Fei is dead for a collapse» I taken back quickly speaking, in the fear that that he surrendered to unadvised gestures. «Nobody has killed him. The robot is destroyed. You reflect well now, you have the whole time. Don't act of impulse.»

Benson opened and closed the fists, uncertain on the to make himself/herself/themselves.

«You can make two things» I continued. «The first one is to use that spite. You will have to kill all, if you succeed there. To one sign of mine we will jump you I set together everybody, me for first. Do you think about get by? We put of yes. And then? Don't be a pilot. You can get by, certain, but it would not be easy. You could succeed in making to work the ship. You would be able. But you should justify your survival to loss of the others. And now the alternative: to place that spite. You would be a prisoner, but you could be a prisoner of luxury. If you believe indeed in your job, as I think, we will do the possible one because you the continuous ones, here, on Mars. Not for you, anybody doesn't now like you; but God knows if the Earth needs food.»

Benson was uncertain, but its choice was inevitable. It was a rational man. It spent half minute, then it deposed the spite and it crossed the braccias. Someone sent forth a sigh of relief.

I realized me to have been me: I was taken me a beautiful responsibility acting in that way.

Zeld grabbed the spite and brought out her of the room. It returned after a lot of time, so much that I started to worry me; it brought with itself the backpacks of Robin and Hut. The two was well pleased to wear them and they took to breathe in normal way after few minutes. Everybody we waited that both did sign to have taken back.

«This is beautiful indeed» it told the sudden Robin. Its words made me jolt: you/they had wakened up me. «You were russicchiando, Angel.»

«I regret» I did.

My voice was fettered as that of a true human being. I saw that I was on the shoulder of Robin, now.

«It doesn't care. It keeps on sleeping.»

I obeyed with enthusiasm.

# 30.

In short it went so, more or less.

The return to the ship and the trip I pour the Earth me the lost ones, with what was in the mean: the dismissione of the mine of the robots, the confinamento of the body of Fei in a refrigerated loculo, the imprisonment of Benson on board of the ship and who knows quant'altro. I have only in mind some episodes, moments in which I had awakened and I had lived a few minutes of lucidity.

Of others have told subsequently me, but I don't not at all remember them.

The first time of which has remembrance I was in a minuscule room, to the dark, inserted in the metallic large case showily deformed with which I had come on Mars. I waked up me as a bilious and irascible patient that discovers to be in an unknown place after the operation to the appendix.

«Hey, where devil we are down here!» tuonai with the whole power of my apparatuses.

I didn't feel me anymore so much moscio.

I immediately repented of mine shot, but it had his/her effect. The portucola opened and two heads made capolino: Robin and Lidya.

«Well returned» it said Robin smiling.

It had a beautiful smile. I felt something to the mouth of the stomach that I didn't have.

«You excuse, I didn't want» I murmured, to compensate the cry of before.

«You are forgiven» it said Lidya. «You/they have told me of you. You have been unbelievable.»

«Also you» I liquidated her/it; other people's opinions didn't interest me in the moment.

I rotated my look how much I was able. I was on the ship, obviously, in one of the camerettes of the crew. I did for moving me, it didn't suit me to be there.

«It waits» it immediately said Robin. «Not to move you. You have need to take back you: nourishing, oxygen and a bath in the staminalis.»

«Thing?» I did.

«You should be dead, and different times» it said Lidya with vivacity. «We have talked to Berliz. You have had some damage, but he is mending with the help of this car.»

It alluded to the transport. Then it contained something more of the simple one it eats up. I had not even studied thing.

«Daylight» I said, with difficulty.

I was starting to see the little angel that flew me in circle on the head.

«We have also talked to her. And with your nephews. They say that they don't know whether to express.» it said Robin.

And there I fell asleep again me.

The second time I woke up myself with the face of Lidya that scrutinized nearby me from. I was always in my posting, only that the room was illuminated. I remained to look at her/it for some; it scrutinized me with a lot of attention, I had to be amazing indeed for her.

«Bu!» I did when I had of it enough.

You jumped back of release to the. Laughed gracefully.

«You are awake. Disloyal. He/she is not seen if you have the closed eyes or no.»

«I don't already have them the eyes,» I said. «How it goes?»

«All to place. Also you. You have to put again you but you make progress.»

«I have already felt her. As it is that you are not to the arrests or things of the kind?» I said.

I thought that a direct question would have put her in embarrassment, instead smiled.

«I am him/it, even if in soft way. For good behavior, and because I have to the shoulders a tearful history. You know, the sick mother, the unpaid loan, the people that don't understand you.»

«Already. The same usual history. Is it Benson?»

«Its history is different. But what you have told him will happen: they will send him/it on Mars with someone to watch him/it. Its searches will be very useful.»

«I have told only him to convince him/it.»

Lidya tightened him in the shoulders.

«It doesn't care. The important thing is that.»

And it was again pufff.

The third one and last time that I remember it was the best. Same place, different company. There was Robin close to me, you/he/she had gotten off a panel of my carcass and you/he/she was peering at to the inside.

«Guardona» I murmured.

You jolted, then laughed.

«I was checking only. So much to avoid that they come you the substances that serve you up to the Earth to miss. Of cavolate of it enough an alone.»

«I have done her big, eh?»

I didn't exactly know to thing it alluded. I had combined too of it; and well, to the moment, I didn't remember anybody of it.

Robin appropriated the sides as you/he/she was my daughter.

«You are behaved you by big idiot, damn you.»

«You are nice when you become rabid you» I said me.

I immediately repented of it: I didn't want to be so explicit, I risked the ridicule. You looked me, or it looked better at the heap of metal that I was with the face crossed by a lot of emotions. I strengthened at the most my senses and I launched about forty processes of analysis of facial mimicry, blood's irrorazione to the face, microattivazione of the unintentional muscles, modulation of the pupil and all that that it came me to mind to the moment. Anymore a macro process of examination of the data and them integration, comparison with the present notions of comparative psychology in the exabyte and behavioral statistic analysis. I consulted a half dozen of university texts, articles on the enterprises of Robin and his/her personal card. I employed even there four seconds, but I had the whole time because Robin had remained without words.

«You ask yourself as I would be from true man, but you also like so» I started. «The distance knowledge of my family has subsequently approached you to me. You are liked Daylight and you have made online a search on the facts of the Whip finding the images that withdraw me when I was a complete man. You ask yourself if I feel attraction toward of you and if I have still impelled sexual. You have intention to make a long talk with those of my laboratory respect to my future perspectives and you don't see of good eye that Lidya comes, every now and then, to see how I am, even if she is you nice. You are raged with yourself because you try a something for a half car, you hold yourself ring and absolutely irrational for this, and you have him with me because you attribute me part of the guilt for what you feel. If I didn't now speak quickly you would have escaped away already launching insults and you would make yourself hang rather than to admit that everything that that I have said it is true.»

Robin opened wide the mouth; for the first one turned from when I knew her/it she didn't know whether to react.

«But there is another thing, and this I don't understand her/it really. You would not be you granted to have certain thoughts if I didn't have any concrete hopes that I return to be everywhere of meat and blood. You would not conceive a different relationship, it would be against nature. Am I being all right?»

Robin assumed a more serious air, you/he/she was not embarrassed anymore. It hid me something.

I felt that I started to depart, and it didn't not at all suit me. I fought with all of my strengths to stay conscious. I already knew that I had the tendency to forget some of my awakenings.

"God" I thought" make this episode remember me."

Robin turned on one side, hiding me his/her expression, a hand you/he/she put me on the head. and The fells asleep me as to pupetto.

# 31.

For that that I remember me, the following awakening was in the laboratory. I was extended on an obstructed table of objects, in my iron palletta all flood of crocks and scratches. I had the extended and parallel legs, you lean in good order from a side. I didn't even try to move her. Vladi gave me the shoulders; you/he/she was rearranging the table in front of itself contravening to everything that that I had learned on him: I had reasonably been always some that the expansion and following contraction of the universe would have preceded polished up her/it accurate in which Vladi was busy.

But there was another possible explanation: that was not Vladi. It resembled him quite a lot, that's all.

«They are in the wrong laboratory» concluded.

With my surprise the voice spread in the room as that of whoever other. While I was sleeping they had me endowed with an audio synthesizer, the same of the my old marcantonio dismesso, and I could also hear from common human being. Good and dear old sonorous waves.

Vladi turned him. Joy, pride, sorrow and sense of guilt: it was everything painting on his/her face.

«Mr. Angel» it said, with to small smile. «Pleased to get back her/it with us. Has you/he/she seen of it of all the colors, eh?»

An ideal shaking of shoulders dictates me.

«Be'» I admitted. «And has thing happened here?»

«An uproar. You/he/she has lifted a dust cloud.»

Before I asked other in the room doctor Berliz it entered.

«Angel!» it exclaimed. Then it assumed a tone serioso. «Well returned. But I should give you one curried, you have treated this body as worse him it was not able. How do you feel yourself?»

«Shiny. I hope to stay so at least for the next two minutes.»

«Not to worry you. You don't fall asleep again you unless you don't want him/it. The staminalis have made their work in accelerated way, the brain won't feel the need anymore of. to go off himself/herself/themselves.»

«Badly. Daylight and the boys?»

«They greet you. You/they have asked me to call them when I/you woke up you.»

«And the astronauts? Is everybody well?»

«Yes. They have returned home except Benson. For him there will be a special treatment.»

«I imagine him/it. Alone Benson? Then the tearful history of Lidya doesn't was not live in air.»

Vladi ended his/her job and got further. Berliz followed him/it with the look, and also me.

«Not at all. I have felt what you/he/she has told you. You/he/she has not invented anything, even if he/she spoke to disengaged tone. You/he/she has suffered so many of it and it had some necessities. I would say that you/he/she can be been comprehensive, for once. And then you/he/she has helped you.»

«Already. A moment. What does he/she want to say that has felt? Did it literally intend?»

«You have transmitted every thing, Angel, every thing that has happened you. But, my goodness, could not you use the usual protected protocol? The world has followed you.»

I didn't say anything: I had forgotten to have activated that trial in background; I was so accustomed to have aimlessly more than one of it in my brain that to that I had not made case anymore.

Berliz you have to think that you/he/she was escaped me something, because it drew near me and it added:

«The world. I also intended literally this.»

Oh, cacchio. The net. I had sent online everything without any criptatura.

«I have done this time also her big, eh?»

«You have done her big? People have spent times connected for following your stories. Worse of a romantic serial for housewives. Don't speak of the tense relationships among New Sealon and New Delon. It is due to intervene the World Assembly of the Mayors for derimere the matter.»

It didn't interest a lot me, to the moment; I thought that also the last interview with Robin - above all my monologue - you/he/she had gone online. Terrible. Tells a glance Berliz with some more than appointment.

«Of accord, the matter is ended well however» concluded. «Then thing is that doctor hides me?»

Berliz slightly got excited, aware that would not have been able to hide me nothing anymore. My brain was evolved together with my abilities; even if he/she didn't exactly know as, Berliz had included how certain my actions derived from a mind some above the lines.

It was not matter to boast himself/herself/themselves; everything other. For some things, the best, were cut out irremediably. My distance from the human things, those for which it was worth to live, incolmabile seemed me. A sense of uselessness pervaded me. Now that was awake well for, now that everything was ended, it stayed to face the daily paper. It was too soon to think about this and I knew him/it. I would have had only to rest. But to reflect on myself, on what I had become indeed, it had a that of irrinunciabile.

I was tried to launch two trials in parallel, to speak with Berliz and at the same time to bring forth my lucubrations in holy peace. But I didn't do him/it, you/he/she would have been insane. I forced me not to undouble me, the human beings they don't do him/it; I confined me to ascertain that among all the anomalous awakenings that I remembered, that was without shade of doubt the more bitterness.

I focused me on the words of Berliz; the man wanted to communicate me some inauspicious news.

«If you allow me, first the thing. less hard: Kurt was of the other part.»

Kurt was of the other part; which meant a man of New Delon. This dissuaded me from my whinings, even if the thing didn't interest so much then me.

Kurt. You/he/she had put me the hands I set, you/he/she had shaped me him. Had brotherly friend of Vladi become: that's why that boy was so been sorry that morning (evening, afternoon, night?).

«Your problems with the legs are his/her guilt and our responsibility. We have chosen the wrong technician. You/he/she has altered your connections in terminal block thinking about preventing you every movement. The mission you would have failed. You would be dead.»

I didn't very even care of this: I was gotten by, it was water passed by now. But Berliz had to consider a great deal the serious thing and to feel himself/herself/themselves in guilt more than the others: Kurt was man of Of the but you/he/she had done him the psychological profile of the boy and recommended his/her access to the laboratory.

I wondered me how much the other thing was indeed it lasts.

«Let's not speak not of it more» I said. «The same has gone. You/he/she has been better perhaps also.»

Anchise would not have come and out not even the myself courtly and liricheggiante; without them I would have employed who knows how much time to learn to race as is owed.

Berliz nodded, as if you/he/she had wanted to continue with the excuses but the gravity of the other information premised more.

I worried indeed me.

«There is a fact of which to speak» Berliz started. «Your brother.»

The physician left that I read him/it from his/her face.

«Dead» I whispered stunned. «As it is possible?»

Dan was dead. I had never believed to see that day, I took for granted that, seen that that I was, I would have disappeared a lot before him. And then, he was more youth; my little brother, that to be defended from everything and from everybody. Even if we had broken for a while the relationships, I had always kept on thinking about my nephews and he; and also to his/her/their wife Patricia, a sweet and comprehensive woman, that that wanted us for Dan, rough as the paper glass door and certain to be right on every matter.

You/he/she had always been difficult to talk to him: or you quarreled, or you granted him the soliloquy nodding every now and then.

But Dan was also sincere and generous, that kind of man that you/he/she had to be taken for the correct verse: if you did him/it, you ended up adoring him/it, otherwise it became an unbearable rompiscatole. But nobody is perfect.

«Dead» I repeated.

I remained in silence for a beautiful po', with Berliz that studied me.

«You want us to speak of it?» he/she kindly asked.

«We have done him» I told with a hard tone the voice; to that it served to soak him in front of a sentence that would not have been able to be more definitive? The practical fact interested only me, now; to stigmatize me, to cry I set me I would have been good alone, later. «As has happened?»

«It was sick. From quite a lot» it said Berliz.

I didn't know anything. Also of this I would have made a guilt. When you/he/she had called me, after the facts of the Whip, it was sick and you/he/she had not told me nothing. In effects you/he/she was seemed me a strange phone call, with implications that went beyond the appearance.

«When?» I asked.

«You were on the street of the return, Angel, on the ship. And there is another thing. His/her wife Patricia wants to see you first possible.»

«Patricia?» I asked stunned. «To see me now? Because?»

It seemed me not to be able to face her/it, I was almost certain that you/he/she would have made me a guilt for the death of Dan or you/he/she would have cried on my iron shoulder. None of the two things suited me to genius, for the truth.

«It is better if it tells you him herself» it made Berliz.

«You know him/it, doctor» I said.

«Yes. It is important.»

«He/she wants that deduces him/it from his/her wrinkles, doctor, here and now?» I said, irate without motive. «From his/her way of oscillating the head coordinating him/it with the heart rate, the tones of the breath, the posture, the microirrorazionis of the pore?»

«I would like to see to do you him, yes. But you would not do him/it. Not here, and not now.»

It was right. He/she knew how I felt me: an iron clot with stuck a strange brain that had lost another fundamental part of itself. Dan was dead. My brother. Anything still meant for one as me.

«You will meet her?» Berliz insisted.

«It is all right» I murmured submissive.

«I call her» it said Berliz getting further himself/herself/itself. «It will be here in few minutes. He/she already knew that you would wake up you.»

«Doctor?» I called; I had never met Patricia after the transplantation and it didn't suit me that he/she saw me in that state.

Berliz stopped him on the door.

I felt me in embarrassment.

«I cannot speak to her. I know» The admitteds.

A steel giant could also pass, but a battered ragnetto. you/he/she was too much indeed, at that time.

The physician observed me for a second.

«Not to worry you. We will cover you so that doesn't see you. Rather, better if it is not aware of anybody your form. It also knows you her as the sphere zamputa of Mars. But are we now on the Earth, correct? We will say that you are in isolation, elsewhere, and you will talk through your voice radio to a loudspeaker. He/she won't know what you are close to her.»

«Thanks.»

«Of what?» it said Berliz going out of the door.

I stayed to wait for thinking about Dan.

I could not close the eyes, but I clipped the whole ghost of frequencies and I fell in the obscurity.

# 32.

Patricia is sat close to the table on which I was leaned; Vladi had me favorite with a curtain and the woman you/he/she could not see me. But I could look at her: having a distributed sight I succeeded in peering at among the fibers of the fabric that it covered me here and there, and integrating all the single fragments I built me a complete image of what it was around me.

Patricia didn't have a good wax, but it was a strong woman. It had to damnedly have a good motive to be there. We had not spoken a lot never, us two, also when I was a complete man. I found the company of fatiguing Dan, even if I loved my brother, so also his/her family I had frequented her little. It was a sin: Patricia and my nephews were decidedly nice.

Patricia looked around him; it was alone in the room, for that that he/she knew. Berliz had given her a chair and a sold device for the interface that had to use for talking to me. In reality I carried away cable my voice over-the-counter acoustics that was her before, while to feel I didn't have her/it need of alcunché.

«Angel» he/she called Patricia with firm tone.

It had some occhiaies, but for the rest it seemed well star; at least, as far as possible seen the circumstances.

«I feel you, Patricia» I said, with the voice some cacophonous of the loudspeaker. «Excuse me, but I/you/they have never been good to do the condolences. I have always found him inadequate.»

Patricia weakly smiled.

«We do what to place are both, Angel. I know what you try. I don't want to speak neanch'io of it. It is too soon.»

«Thanks. His/her children?»

«Be'.»

«Already. A beautiful po will be grown'.»

«Lina arrives to me to the shoulder, and Centers it has the voice of his/her father.»

«Unbelievable.»

It was indeed it, I didn't remember at all them so great.

«I want to tell you that. The ams you thankful. If you/they have not lived too badly the agony of Dan it is because there was his/her uncle to make stunts on the ground Martian. They have been attached to the net the whole time.»

«You tell him/it as if I/you had had a good time.»

«Only sometimes» it said, smiling again. «I bet there.»

It was nice as always.

«You won't be only here for thanking me, I imagine.»

«No. I am busy a very serious proposal you. Rather, Dan has a proposal. They are here in his/her place.»

Patricia arranged more comfortably him on the chair. It was really nearby now me.

«You/he/she has never borne the simulacro of metal in which you had slipped. You know as it was Dan.»

«And you?»

«The same, with some reserve. But after what you have done to the Whip and on Mars. however we return to the proposal. Dan knew that you/he/she would not have overcome six months. You/they have tried to operate him/it, but not all the brain tumors are operable. The tumor was in the worse point, you/he/she has destroyed that that it was quickly able. But you/he/she has left the rest intact. On application of Dan, you/they have risked a last operation, but it was a desperate attempt: if he/she succeeded, Dan earned a living; if it failed, you earned there yours. At least, according to Dan.»

«What it means?»

«What you/he/she has decided to live to the best or to give you a healthy body, before the tumor expanded out him some brain. You/he/she has deliberately shortened his/her existence to give you a possibility of life from normal man.»

I remained without words: Patricia was stunned, but you/he/she could not be him/it so much to invent him a lie of the kind.

You/he/she had spoken clear, so much to make me difficult to understand her/it: from years I was forced me to accept that that I had become. It now dealt with undoing all and to start again.

«But. Pat, of what devil macaws you speaking?» I asked.

«You have available a healthy body. It is compatible according to your physicians. And you have a healthy mind without body. Even if on the healthy mind I would not swear, later what has seen.»

«Berliz, Of the.»

«We have come here for the necessary analyses, Angel.»

«. nobody has told me nothing» The protesteds.

«It is obvious. Before the reports you/he/she would have been foolish, and after you were already in the space. You/they would have given only you a thought in more.»

I sustained me calm. Who knows how many times I had desired to be able to return back in the time before the espianto. Also to when I was badly, also to still get back those feelings that is so easily given for you discount. I had an occasion, you/he/she had given him for me Dan to dear price.

«You that I/you/he/she think of it?» I asked.

The face of Patricia was filled with conflicting feelings; I tried not to look with too much appointment but by now I had learned well: I saw the joy to give a deep sense to the death of his/her/their husband and the horror to know that I would have been the new master of that body that companion of life had been her. Because we are also meat and blood in the love, beyond the sex. I saw the horror in to think what you/they would have tried his/her children meeting me for road, debated among the desire to embrace me and the fury for a granted but unforgivable theft. I also saw what its answer would have been before he/she spoke: Patricia wanted to carry out the wishes of Dan with unshakable steadiness, the other things they were secondary; he/she wanted that they were him/it.

«It doesn't matter» it murmured.

It bent the head and attended, looking himself/herself/itself at the hands that were crossed above the knees. A small gesture of surrender, the only moment of weakness that was allowed until then.

I instinctively stuck out a hand toward of her with the impulse to put her/it on his. I immediately stayed me: I would have frightened her, you/he/she would have been a ridiculous scene and inappropriata.

«I thank you, Patricia, and I thank Dan» I said with heat.

«You will do him/it? Will you return human?» churches her lifting the head.

I didn't want immediately to decide; it was that that I had wanted in the last times, but the death of Dan had subsequently put in crisis my identity.

«Human. I am already it, Patricia, even if in different way» I said. «But I will think it, I will very seriously think it.»

Patricia got up from the chair.

«We see us, Angel» it said, going toward the door.

«Yes, in a way or in the other.» The answereds.

But Patricia was already distant.

# 33.

And so I had returned as before. Be', not exactly; but when I woke up my morning, the cispa at times it punctured me the eyes. I cut me shaving me and at times playing with the boys I did me a livid blue. However I enjoyed me the pranzettis of Daylight and the caress of the sun on the skin, the perfumes of the gardens and that sense of human, terrible vulnerability that gives importance to every day of our life. There is no need to go on Mars to be special; him he is in the daily life, if it is not completely alone. And I was not him/it. I had a great family: apart Daylight and the boys, there were those of the laboratory; I continued to go us and the project that my name brought it continued as not never. My brain was unique however, even if you/he/she had shown more than once to contain an idiotic mind.

And there were Patricia and his/her children; after the plant of my brain inside Dan, after I had become Dan, at least to a superficial look, I had not seen none of them. Comprehensible. I wanted lasciar to spend some time, then I would have found the way of do me alive also with Patricia and the boys, because we were united from something of extraordinary, something that had given me with pain. My unstoppable tutelar spirit had to be also satisfied toward of them however, I knew him/it. But not immediately. Before I had to learn to use my new body. I owed to return human to all the effects, not the awkward manikin that hardly succeeded in walking. Because yes, of all the difficult things that I had had to learn again, to the usual one the deambulazione was that thornier: every day I appeared on the sidewalk before house and I did me some kilometer tightening the teeth, pesticciando the feet on the pavement, stantuffando as an ancient locomotive, and more than an unloader cursing of I bring.

The muscles worked and my senses were excellent, yet the simple one to put together two footsteps appeared me arduous enterprise and inarrivabile. Daylight had accompanied me more times, taking me to braccetto and trying to distract me with its gossips, but stumbles, I had stamped on my same feet and after his, risking to make to fall both.

My daughter had abdicated snickering in irritating way.

«You will arrive there dad. Don't be in a hurry.» you/he/she had said.

I/you/they have always been a patient person, I strove me to remember him/it.

One day as another I was gone out of the laboratory pawing as a held back colt, when I remembered mine small old evening tradition: it was time of rinverdirla.

This way, caracollai toward the park as a taught bear, trying not to hinder the people that I met.

«Poor guy.» it said burdens passer-by shifting me.

Also the oldies overcame me with the chin to the insù.

It was a punishment and I drenched of sweat the shirt, but I succeeded in reaching the park however and to throw myself on the bench of my private angoletto. The fontanella gushed Argentinian and there was the birdies you sue to make himself/herself/themselves the bath in the small basin completing the softness of the scene.

I breathed to full bellows the pregnant air of the perfume of cut grass and I slightly shivered for some refolos of wind that it disarranged me the hair. Cools, but of it godetti every instant.

I was alone, as you/he/she was often happened late afternoon to that time of the when I had gone down there as metallic marcantonio.

I left half open the eyes and I left that my human perceptions solicited me; I was master of it, by now, even if my brain had had to learn to sensory riutilizzare that didn't know from quite a lot. The only difficulty I had him with the touch, that I lived in exaggerated way: to touch something was still a strong and vehement experience, perhaps because that was the sense that an iron body sacrifices more. Done it is that the simple presence of the suits on my skin communicated me small electric shake and a permanent itch ubiquitario it made the matter how much less annoying.

The first time that I dressed me I did him/it in front of my physicians, and it was embarrassing in absolute way; I had already had to show indifference in front of my sex: that stuff that hung there before it was of Dan, not my and the only idea to touch her/it for mingere it created me a strong uneasiness. When however I wore the underpantses. and The didn'ts know whether to I give to put her without touching me. The tried an unthinkable feeling to the stomach and The dirtieds anywhere of seminal liquid.

The physicians also blushed. They had a beautiful say that it was what normal, I cannot wait to run away away. Since then the things were improved of very, naturally.

The sense of smell and the taste were a pleasant surprise of which I misused, and, in fact, I fattened up of eight kilos and I continued to stramangiare until I had not brutally put to diet.

With the time I found an equilibrium without helps.

The sight was a small disappointment, instead: the extension missed me to all the frequencies of the ghost, it seemed me to observe the world to clear-dark, without chromatic tones. The man has his/her limits, he is known, everything is to accept them.

My thoughts were interrupted by a composite scalpiccìo of hasty footsteps, that first they reached me and then they overcame me stopping himself/herself/itself to the opposite bench.

«Hi, Angel» it said a voice that well I knew.

I opened the eyes: in front of me, over the jet, there were three ladies.

The first one was Robin, obviously; you/he/she had spoken her, and not as soon as I saw her/it I became as a pepper red. I was a complete man, now, and my hormones took to tyrannize me: it was beautiful, Robin, above all without that astronaut diving-suit. I watched out for not to move not to produce me strange strofinii to the low abdomen.

«Hi» I said me with uncertain voice.

Had I always been so prevented with the women?

«Good morning, Angel» the mayor joined in conversation; her, sat close to Robin, you/he/she was in form and you/he/she seemed radiant. «We have a scaletta, I hope that you are not sorry. We won't give you a lot of time to speak. You know, we are three busy women.»

I didn't understand what it intended; then I looked at his/her right and I studied the neighbor, more or less of the age of Daylight, with a white baton and dark goggles. Threadbare, the girl of the Whip.

«It is my turn» it said the young one fixing me without seeing me. «You/they have told me thing you have combined, iron man. Not badly.»

It had the usual decided tone. It slightly smiled.

«I almost all come here the evenings» it added. «It is a calm place. You have done me him to know you. They tell me that you have some problem.»

I don't know who had told her what; but it had to deal him with walking, lately I had abused physicians and family with my complaints.

«You see to stop her/it and put us some heart» it said Threadbare, hard, but keeping on smiling. «There is still need of you, down here. I watch you.»

The expression in his/her mouth didn't not at all seem paradoxical: it watched indeed me, to his/her way. Threadbare it got up and it went with sure footstep as you/he/she had come.

«It is my turn» it said the mayor. You stuck out in my direction uniting the hands. «I won't succeed in being concise as Threadbare. Everything, thanks. You have done a good job; too much, someone would say also.»

I understood that that it intended: my transmissions had brought New Delon to the political smash. Fei knew the mayor of that city, it was not difficult to discover him/it. From there to the journalistic extrapolations the footstep was brief: the whole junta town was had to discharge, the mayor if n'era escaped who knows where, New Delon had been left in balìa of itself same. This way that happened that had been craved by Fei, but contrarily: New Delon was attached to New Sealon.

But I am putting too much her on the melodramatic one: in reality it is more correct to say that the two cities they finally melted him with the approval of the World Assembly of the Mayors.

The administrations and the police became only, but the daily life of the middle citizen had of it well few consequences. You reduced the free political rissosità, this yes. They were almost all overall happy.

The mayor looked for the correct words.

«But above all, Angel, Threadbare you/he/she has said a correct thing. There is need of you. Not only for your family or for the woman that is nearby me.» The becames red as to next tomato to the marcescenza. «No, also the City needs you. You have shown that certain abilities can have put to service of the whole community.»

Did it say the mayor seriously? It seemed that he/she didn't succeed in realizing that I was in meat and bones, now; I would not have been able to make alcunché of exceptional, as simple human being anymore. The woman saw my expression and smiled.

«I have talked to your physicians. Your brain is still cabled, Angel. If you want, you can return in your old steel bodies, or in others. Think of us. In this old world we have a lot of problems. You could be still profit, he/she is never known.»

I opened wide the mouth as a fish in slow asphyxia.

«Be'» I observed, cautious. «It is not just as to change himself/herself/themselves the suit.»

«I know him/it» it admitted her. «But to the laboratory there is smart people. They say that your brain can do well other.»

«I believe her on the word» I affirmed.

I looked at Robin now, and the mayor interested me the correct one. Robin reciprocated my look with a certain modesty.

The mayor you are had to acknowledge my distraction because it got up standing, it overcame the fountain and the hand put me on the shoulder.

«Of it riparleremo. Enjoy your human condition.»

Says this, it hastily got further making me a sign with the hand.

«It is my turn» he/she ascertained Robin.

«Already» I said me.

I thought only about checking me, that he/she spoke her.

«Damn you» Robin began, serious. «I/you/they have become the laughingstock of the colleagues from when you/he/she has gone circulating that your transmission.»

«I regret it, I didn't think.»

«I speak me. I/you/they have been furious for a beautiful po' with you, but then you/he/she is passed. I have had a lot of job after our mission on Mars. New responsibilities. It seems that the tall spheres put back in me a foolish trust. Worth of the mission on Mars. Absurd, up there you have done all you. However the mine goes to the great one. I wanted that I knew him/it. We have closed the collapsed part, too much dangerous, and open other more superficial galleries.»

It didn't care a cionfolo of it, to the moment; I appreciated, however, finds again her/it intimacy of that pescettinis to the ultraviolet one. My recordings had not underlined them, since who had viewed her it was a normal human being. Now they returned to be confined in their world, to the shelter from that big snoops of the man.

Smiles: stuff from crazy person, had extended my morbid tutelar spirit until on Mars.

«Until now I have left you alone» it said Robin. «You had to take back you. They have lately happened too of it. And I still grant you some time. Few, however. I have intention to know the gentleman that is me before, it would be able not to be sorry me.»

Dan had been a beautiful man, in life, certainly more attractive than me. I became for the third time ruddy.

«Ehm, better, yes» I said. «In effects. The have burdens exaggerated physical reactions, to the moment.»

«I have felt him say. It plays interesting» it made Robin smiling.

I dissuaded the look. The birdies attractively sprinkled droplets of water in my direction to dry after the bagnetto.

I turned again me toward of her.

«So you knew him/it» I said me changing matter. «Of my brother.»

Robin returned serious.

«Yes, I am sorry Angel. You/they have communicated us the news on the ship. I have not done in time to tell you him, you were always in the world of the dreams. And I don't know if I would have done him, however.»

«It is for this» I said. «For this I/you/they are seemed you. attainable. A real possibility.»

«The perspective has softened me, yes: you could become again man, Angel remaining.»

«I am also Dan.»

«Perhaps. But you have the voice of Angel. You six Angel. We have spoken quite a lot, more than that that memoirs. I know you. I am not a ragazzina anymore, that I am liked that you have inside the skull, and it is especially what interests me. If then it is in an attractive body, better.»

Robin had some beautiful smooth hair to caschetto, vanished blonds, with a saucy long hair. Behind the helmet I had not succeeded to appreciate her/it and on the ship I was too twisted for realizing me of it. I very slowly took action of his/her beauties. How strange.

«I have to go. You know, the job» it said Robin lifting himself/herself/itself standing. «You remain still here for some, please. Don't approach you. Don't be the solo to have exaggerated reactions.»

This I didn't understand her/it, but it didn't perhaps care.

I followed with the look Robin that went. He/she remained me in the eyes his/her smile. I was alone again.

I inhaled with strength and I fought me the hands on the knees.

«Of accord» I told me tall voice, letting a pair of passer-bys turning. «I will have to learn to walk for the fourth time, it seems.»

I got up me standing. Threadbare it was right: I had to give me a movement and to plant her/it with the whinings. All it took is putting us some heart. Also the mayor was right: I could lend a hand, I was not a very smart person, but I had a flexible and adaptable brain and I was learning to use better always it.

Also Robin was right: you/he/she had left me alone, but you/he/she would not have a lot still pazientato for. And for then I had to be ready.

After all to walk was not difficult. It first of all served the courage. Then, some technique: I made to depart fifteen trials, every tense to analyze the movement of all the people that I saw around me to a certain distance. My eyes squirted here and there, while I was sucking feelings from all the parts of my body; I looked for my baricentro and I transmitted stimuli voters to the whole muscular apparatus. I studied the reactions of it and I made to depart the elaborations extrapolating in abstracted the perceptions of my body in movement. The park was not around me anymore: I saw to everything field the image of myself to stir in a tactile and visual simulation; to every minuscule unbalance I modified the stimuli and my body he straightened. Rhesuses as the loosest mechanism, until I didn't feel that I had not walked so well never in all of my life, that any man in every time had ever done him. Racimolai all the data, integrated them among them and I condensed them. I memorized the necessary one and I made to disappear the simulation. The real world reappeared me before.

I breathed again: few instants had passed by the departure of the trials. I realized me that I knew how to be more precise than so: I had calculated that time up to the decimillesimo of according to.

Very well it was the moment to return home.

Smiles: I would have made a surprise to Daylight and the boys, a kind of small gift for the one that has always been spellbound from the space as me. Who knows as you/they would be felt about being the only ones to the world to know that on Mars there was some true life?

Be', I would have discovered him of to a few minutes there.

I taken to walk to great fluid footsteps, without effort, whistling to the time of the passerottis while I was serenely crossing the paths of the park.

The author

Luca Poggi, engineer, lives to Quarrata on the hills near Pistoia, where he/she works and alive with his/her family: wife, three children and three cats. From a few years he/she writes stories and novels, without forgetting his/her first love: the science fiction.

With 0111 Editions Luca Poggi has published:

"The last rain" (adventure, 2012)

"Escape from the Sparrow hawk" (science fiction, 2011)

"Of star in star" (harvest of fantastic stories, 2011)

