THE COSMIC COMPUTER

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occupants are hostile. Captain Poole, will you please make ready aboard
your ship? Reduce both speed and altitude, and ready your guns and
missiles at once."

"Well, now, wait a minute, young fellow," Poole began to argue. "You
don't know?"

"No. I don't. And I want all of us alive after we find out, too," Karski
replied.

Rodney Maxwell's voice, in the background, said something
indistinguishable. Poole said ungraciously, "Well, all right, if you
think so...."

The /Lester Dawes/ began dropping to the rear and going down toward the
ground. Conn returned to the teleview screen in time to see the
truncated cone of the extinct volcano rise on the horizon, dwarfing