THE COSMIC COMPUTER

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industrial robots. The prisoners piled out of the two scows and began
rummaging. Somebody found a case of cigarettes and smashed it open; in a
moment, cartons were being tossed around and opened, and everybody was
smoking. The pirates evidently hadn't issued any tobacco rations to
their prisoners.

And they found arms and ammunition, began ripping open cases, handing
out rifles, pistols, submachine guns. The prisoners grabbed them even
more hungrily than the cigarettes. Sylvie Jacquemont took charge of the
ammunition; she had three men opening boxes for her, while she passed
out boxes of cartridges and made sure that everybody had ammunition to
fit their weapons. A ragged man who might have been a farm-tramp or a
rich planter before his capture had gotten a bale of cloth open and was
tossing rags around while the chief engineer inspected weapons and
showed people how to clean out the cosmoline and fill their spare magazines.

Conn collected a few of his own party.