"Watch!"
Kane tightened his fingers around my throat.
Verana and Marie screamed shrilly.
My head seemed to swell like a balloon; my throat gurgled painfully.
"Please stop," the machine pleaded.
"What will your masters think of you if I kill all of us? You'll return to them with a cargo of dead people!"
The machine didn't answer. I waited for the electronic brain to interfere and, with a cold knot in my stomach, realized the machine had said it had no way to control our actions!
"Your purpose won't be fulfilled, will it?" Kane demanded. "Not if you return with dead specimens!"
"No," the machine admitted.