Firstborn(Time Odyssey 3) - By Arthur C. Clarke Page 0,62

spoke of the telephone ringing.

Not that. He said, agitated, almost distressed with his tension. That was just the start. There has been more, more just todayyou must come to see Captain Grove asked, See what, man? She is here. The Eyeit came backit flexedshe! And Abdikadir broke away and sprinted back into the temple. Bewildered, the travelers followed.
PART 3 REUNIONS 28: SUIT FIVE
It wasnt like waking. It was a sudden emergence, a clash of cymbals. Her eyes gaped wide open, and were filled with dazzling light. She dragged deep breaths into her lungs, and gasped with the shock of selfhood.

She was lying on her back. Her breath was straining, her chest hurting. When she tried to move, her arms and legs were heavy. Encased. She was trapped, somehow.

Her eyes were open, but she could see nothing.

Her breathing grew more rapid. Panicky. She could hear it, loud in an enclosed space. She was locked up inside something.

She forced herself to calm. She tried to speak, found her mouth crusted and dry, her voice a croak. Myra?

I'm afraid Myra cant hear you, Bisesa. The voice was soft, male, but very quiet, a whisper.

Memories flooded back. Suit Five? The Pit on Mars. The Eye that had inverted. Her pulse thudded in her ears. Is Myra okay?

I don't know. I cant contact her. I cant contact anybody.

Why not?

I don't know, the suit said miserably. My primary power has failed. I am in minimum-functionality mode, operating on backup cells. Their expected operating life is

Never mind.

I am broadcasting distress signals, of course.

She heard something now, a kind of scratching at the carapace of the suit. Something was out thereor somebody. She was helpless, blind, locked in the inert suit, while something explored the exterior. Panic bubbled under the surface of her mind. Can I stand? I mean, can you? I'm afraid not. Ive let you down, havent I, Bisesa? Can you let me see? Can you de-opaque my visor? That is acceptable.

Light washed into her field of view, dazzling her.

Looking up, she saw an Eye, a fat silvered sphere, swollen with mystery. And she saw her own reflection pasted on its face, a Mars suit on its back, a helplessly upended green bug.

But was this the same Eye? Was she still on Mars?

She lifted her head within the helmet, trying to see past the Eye. Her head felt heavy, a football full of sloshing fluids. It was like pulling Gs in a chopper. Heavy gravity: not Mars, then.

She saw a brick wall beyond the Eye. Bits of electronic equipment studded the wall, fixed crudely, linked up with cable. She knew that wall, that gear. She had assembled it herself, scavenged from the crashed Little Bird, when she had set up this chamber as a laboratory to study an Eye.

This was the Temple of Marduk. She was back in Babylon. She was on Mir. Here I am again, she whispered.

A face loomed over her, sudden, unexpected. She flinched back, strapped in her lobster suit. It was a man, young, dark, good-looking, his eyes clear. She knew who it was. But it couldnt be him. Abdi? The last time she saw Abdikadir, her crewmate from the Little Bird, he had been worn out from the Mongol War, his face and body bearing the scars of that conflict. This smooth-faced man was too young, too untouched.

Now another face hovered in her view, illuminated by flickering lamplight. Another familiar face, a tremendous mustache, but this time older than she remembered, grayed, lined. Captain Grove, she said. The gangs all here.

Grove said something she couldnt hear.

Her chest hurt even more. Suit. I cant breathe. Open up and let me out.

It isnt advisable, Bisesa. We arent in a controlled environment. And these people are not the crew of Wells Station, the suit said primly. If they exist at all.

Open up, she said as severely as she could. I'm overriding any other standing orders you have. Your function is to protect me. So let me out before I suffocate.

The suit said, I'm afraid other protocols override your instructions, Bisesa. What other protocols? Planetary protection.

The suit was designed to protect Mars from Bisesa as much as Bisesa from Mars. So if she were to die the suit would seal itself up, to keep the remains of her body from contaminating Marss fragile ecology. In extremis, Suit Five was programmed to become her coffin.

Yes, butoh, this iswe arent even on Mars! Cant you see that? Theres nothing to protect! She strained, but her limbs were