“Don’t, unless you are....”
He went on, but it was obvious that the officers and crew of the William Branchell weren’t paying the attention they should. Every one of them was thinking dark gray thoughts. It was bad enough that they had to take out a ship like the Brainchild, untested and jerry-built as she was. Was it necessary to have an eight-hundred-pound, moron-genius child-machine running loose, too?
“To wind it up,” Fitzhugh said, “I imagine you are wondering why it’s necessary to take Snookums off Earth. I can only tell you this: Snookums knows too much about nuclear energy.”
Mike the Angel smiled grimly to himself. Ensign Vaneski had been right; Snookums was dangerous—not only to individuals, but to the whole planet.
Snookums, too, was a juvenile delinquent.
10
The Brainchild lifted from Antarctica at exactly 2100 hours, Greenwich time. For three days the officers and men of the ship had worked as though they were the robots instead of their passenger—or cargo, depending on your point of view.