"Greater and greater stress and they broke down faster and faster," Flattery said. "But you'll notice that the last words from each betrayed a type of deterioration akin to schizo -"

"Akin!" Bickel sneered. "That's what you see all through these damn reports: 'Something similar to...'' A condition that reminds one of...' 'Akin to...'" He glared from Flattery to Timberlake. "The truth is we don't know what the hell goes on in an OMC's gray matter."

A clicking-buzzing erupted from the master board above Flattery.

Bickel waited while Flattery fought out a manual temperature adjustment in an inner hold. Presently, Flattery wiped perspiration from his forehead, studied his gauges to be certain the balance was holding.

"Man, that board is murder," Timberlake muttered. "I don't wonder those OMCs caved in."

Flattery risked a glance away from the board. "You know better than that, Tim. This part of the job was child's play for a functioning OMC. They could handle most ship homeostasis problems by something akin to reflex action."

"Akin," Bickel said.

"All right!" Flattery barked, and pretended to be busy with the board to hide his confusion at allowing Bickel to get to him that way.

A long silence settled over Com-central, broken when Flattery regained his composure and said, "I was about to say that the end tapes on each brain show statements similar to schizophrenic writing. It makes a pretense of meaning... and sometimes stumbles onto a colorful phrase, but the essential..."

He broke off as the master board grew three diagonal stripes of flashing yellow. Flattery's hands darted to the controls as Bickel shouted, "Grav shift!" and dove for his couch.

Cocoons snapped closed around them and they felt the creeping, jerking weight shifts, the runaway fluctuation of the field-centering system - the unexplained gravity variance that had killed Maida.

BICKEL WATCHED FLATTERY'S hands fight the gravity system back into balance. It had taken several bruising minutes, but the tugging and jerking had begun to ease. The system centered slowly. Flattery waited it out. Presently, he made a fine adjustment in the controls.

"Where were we?" Timberlake asked.

"We were raking through our data, seeking anything useful," Bickel said. "It's a clumsy way to operate, but necessary."

"Guilt-sharing," Flattery said.

"What?" Bickel was outraged.

"Never mind," Flattery said. "Back to square one: You will recall that OMC/Myrtle said: 'I have no incarnation: That may have been the only accurate thing in her jabbering. After all, except for gray matter, she had no flesh. But then, remember, after a long silence she said: 'I'm counting my fingers.' She had no fingers, no conscious memory of fingers. And that final question: 'Why are you all so dead?' The best guess is that any meaning in these statements and questions was purely accidental."

"I think she was referring to us, to the crew," Bickel said. "It's nuts, yes, but it was a direct question over the vocoders and we were the only possible audience."

"Unless she was referring to the colonists in the hyb tanks," Flattery said. "They might appear dead under some -"

"Myrtle had direct contact with the hyb-tank sensors," Timberlake pointed out. "She'd have known if they were alive."

Bickel nodded. "What do you make of Little Joe roaring out over every vocoder in the ship: 'I'm awake! God help me, I'm awake!'"

"A cry for help, perhaps," Flattery said. "Most insane raving is a cry for help in one form or another."

"That leaves Harvey," Bickel said. "Harvey screamed: 'You're forcing me to be unhealthy.' And when we -"

"What could we do?" Timberlake asked, and Bickel heard the note of hysteria in his voice. "There was nothing wrong with any of their life systems. I know there wasn't!"

"Easy does it, Tim," Flattery said. "That was just another nonsense statement."

"We all knew what it meant, though," Bickel said. "I did not see anybody showing surprise when Harvey said: 'I've lost it!' and signed off... permanently. And there we were with three dead brains and no spares."

The callous way Bickel put it sent a shudder through Timberlake, and he could not explain it. He had never been deeply attached to the OMCs. There had always been something faintly accusing about the "ship creatures." Raja Lon Flattery had assured him this was strictly subjective, something from his own attitudes. Raj had always been so positive that the OMC-ship-computer entities were perfectly reconciled to their way of life, happy with their own compensations.

What compensations? Timberlake wondered. Expectancy of long life? But what is three or four thousand years of living if each year is hell?

Timberlake realized then that none of the pat answers from his training classes really touched the basic issue of OMC happiness.

What if it really is a hellish way to live? he wondered. It must be. They are harnessed like engines to all this metal and glass and plastic and time stretches out ahead of them... forever. Maybe death was preferable.

ALMOST HALF OF Prudence Weygand's recuperation time had passed and it had been marked by recurrent uncomfortable silences in Com-central.

Flattery did not like those silences. He felt that every one of them carried his companions farther away - perhaps beyond control. And he had to maintain that delicate contact, that means of control.

One of those silences gripped them now. It seemed to reach into them from the space beyond the ship's hull. Flattery knew he had to say something but he felt oppressed by the silence. He cleared his throat before speaking.

"I wish to say something about anger. I've seen several shows of anger since our emergency - my own anger included."

The formal tone, the set of his face - all signaled that Flattery was speaking officially as their chaplain. "Anger could destroy us," he said. "The Proverbs warn us: 'He that is soon angry dealeth foolishly: and a man of wicked devices is hated. He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding: but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly.' Let us practice the soft answer and not stir up wrath."

Bickel took a deep breath. Flattery was right, he knew, but Bickel resented the way the man retreated into religion to make his point. How much simpler just to say they were clouding their reason with excess emotion. That was the thing he resented about religion, Bickel thought - the way it appealed to emotion rather than intelligence.

"We've been floundering around, trying to do too much," Bickel said. "That master board is a jury-rigged monstrosity. We need a consistent, organized plan to meet our problems. When Moonbase answers, I want to be able to say we have -"

Sharp, heavy G force pressed him against the side of his couch cocoon. It struck without klaxon warning or alarm light. Cocoon safety locks sealed home. Now, red alarm lights flashed with the yellow in long webs across the master board.

Flattery slammed the gravity disconnect with the heel of his left hand. G force ebbed. Yellow alarm lights winked off as their pressure switches released. A line of red alarm lights remained.