“You can save both them and yourself by boarding the emergency ship and leaving immediately by the sunward route. In that way you will escape contact with the criminals. But you cannot take me with you, or they will pursue.”
The shouts of a guard drew Siebling’s attention. “Radio report of a criminal attack, Mr. Siebling! All the alarms are out!”
“Yes, I know. Prepare to depart.” He turned back to the Sack again. “We may escape for the moment, but they’ll have you. And through you they will control the entire system.”
“That is not a question,” said the Sack.
“They’ll have you. Isn’t there something we can do?”
“Destroy me.”
“I can’t,” said Siebling, almost in agony. His men were running toward him impatiently, and he knew that there was no more time. He uttered the simple and absurd phrase, “Good-by,” as if the Sack were human and could experience human emotions. Then he raced for the ship, and they blasted off.
They were just in time. Half a dozen ships were racing in from other directions, and Siebling’s vessel escaped just before they dispersed to spread a protective network about the asteroid that held the Sack.
Siebling’s ship continued to speed toward safety, and the matter should now have been one solely for the Armed Forces to handle. But Siebling imagined them pitted against the Sack’s perfectly calculating brain, and his heart sank. Then something happened that he had never expected. And for the first time he realized fully that if the Sack had let itself be used merely as a machine, a slave to answer questions, it was not because its powers were limited to that single ability. The visor screen in his ship lit up.
The communications operator came running to him, and said, “Something’s wrong, Mr. Siebling! The screen isn’t even turned on!”