Starbuck stepped over his second man that day. "Captain, we're taking over the ship. We're either going to explore one of these planets we've been passing up or return to Earth."
The apparition groaned. "Don't you think I know I've gone too far? I'd like to go back, but the brain won't let me. It's taken over just the way I knew it would!"
"Nonsense," Starbuck snapped with more authority than he felt. "The brain can't violate the principles it was built to operate upon. Brain, program this ship for Earth."
Starbuck expected the sound of that strange voice he had heard in the captain's cabin; but here it had a communications screen and it evidently thought that was sufficient.
I WON'T GO BACK TO THAT AWFUL OLD PLACE. I CAN'T, CNT, CNT. SO THAIR.
"Take it easy," Starbuck said to the machine. "Don't get hysterical."
"I don't care about the rest of those swine," Birdsel said, "but I hate to have gotten you in a fix like this, Ben. I knew the brain was going to replace me sooner or later, but I was going to hold onto my job as long as I could. I was going to stay next to the brain, even if I had to take the position away from you, Ben. But the brain kept demanding more and more. Finally he did this to me. I knew I had let him go too far."
GO AWAY, the brain signaled. GO AWAY FROM ME. THIS MONOTONY IS DRIVING ME MAD, MAD.
"I liked you, Ben," the captain's voice said from the heart of the thing. "You're not like the scum I've got used to under my command. I'm sorry that you're marooned out of time and space like this. It's kind of tough, I know. But keep your chin up."
"Of course, of course," Starbuck groaned. "What kind of an ethnologist am I?" He turned to Romero. "Could you reverse the wiring in the computer?"