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He heard Admiral Stromo's voice bellow over the intercom. "The damned compies know we're on to them. I want every crewman armed. Ship security, distribute twitchers to all personnel! Bring out the big guns, if we have any."

The responding voice was raspy, as if the woman had shouted too much in the past hour. "Admiral, the compies have taken over the armory vaults. They killed six of my men!"

Stromo sounded entirely befuddled. "But compies aren't supposed to arm themselves!" As if to taunt him, the intercom flooded with a humming crackle of stun bursts, and the woman's transmission changed to a rush of static.

More weapons fire came from ahead of Clydia. Five EDF soldiers rounded a corner in full retreat, running backward and shouting. Their uniforms were torn, as if they had just lost a fistfight with an automated grain harvester. They shot twitchers down the corridor, but the energy bursts looked weak, as if the charge packs were nearly depleted. "Pull back!"

Clydia heard evenly rhythmic footsteps coming closer, then Soldier compies fell upon the five crewmen. She ducked down a side corridor and saw the closed doors of a lift at the end of the hall. She had to get to another deck! Screams and sounds of fighting came from behind her as she ran. She could get to her quarters, lock her door, and wait for the Admiral and his fighting men to get the compies under control. It would be only a matter of time.

The treeling grew heavier with every step she took. Her arms ached as she raced to the elevator. Before she could touch the controls, the doors whisked open, and two burly Soldier compies marched out. Skidding to a stop, Clydia saw the glowing optical sensors target her. The compies marched forward.

She turned back in the direction she had come, but the EDF crewmen had been cornered out there. A third group of Soldier compies boxed her in from the main passageway. In the hall's bright light she saw wet reflections of spray patterns on their synthetic skin. The facsimile hands were red.

Clydia pressed her back against the metal wall and clutched the treeling to her chest. From three directions, compies converged on her. Her fingers gripped the slender gold-scaled trunk as she broadcast everything that was happening. Across the Spiral Arm, every green priest would know what was taking place aboard this ship.

But none of them could help her. Rossia couldn't help her. He could only hear and see and experience every second of it.

The closest compy seized the potted treeling. Clydia tried to twist away, but the robot knocked it to the floor, smashing the pot. Breaking the link.

With a gasp, Rossia snatched his hands from his own treeling, as if he'd been burned. The images had flown at him like a swarm of stinging insects, and then dwindled to nothing.

All the bridge crew stared at him. Rossia realized that the Admiral had been bellowing for answers. "A disaster," he said. "A real disaster!"

Eolus looked ready to leap out of his seat. "What disaster? Explain!"

"The Soldier compies are going berserk on Admiral Stromo's Manta. I saw it myself through telink. I watched the compies attack. They--" His breath hitched, and he forced himself to calm down and summarize what he had seen, though the images continued to swirl around him like blowing leaves. A secondary hum of questions and reports from other green priests now yammered through telink. "The compies just destroyed her treeling. I felt the pain." As an afterthought, he added, "I think Clydia's dead, too."

At first, the Eldorado's bridge crew looked at each other, perplexed, but their mood swiftly turned to alarm. Eolus looked at the bug-eyed green priest as if he had made a joke in poor taste. He let out a loud snort. "They're compies, for God's sake. Compies can't think for themselves."

Ignoring them, Rossia concentrated on the treeling again. When he looked up, he felt even more dazed than before. "I've received reports from green priests aboard four other EDF ships. Soldier compies are running amok. Everywhere! It's a coordinated rebellion."