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.More precisely, of course, the idea was to find the trail of Old Blue's departure.To this end, the Pearl circled the volume of space in which the battle had taken place, stopping at intervals to let out the launch and the suited collectors.This process continued for half a day until they had closed in on what Domingo considered the most promising place to start a really detailed search.And to augment the human crew, a couple of service robots were put to work in space.The nebula here was still torn and mottled by the contending energies that ships and machines had spent against each other.Most of the battle-distorted clouds were still expanding, at meters or lens of meters or perhaps even greater distances per second, fading and intermingling with other material as they swelled.But emission clouds, red-shifting now as they cooled and contracted, were splashed like blood through the contorted whiteness.That these particular clouds were contracting was a hopeful sign; shrinking clots of murk would not hide a trail as still-expanding clouds might easily have done.Whatever departure trails might exist here were already badly blurred out with the passage of several standard days since the battle was fought.The natural movements of material in the nebula were wiping the traces away.But Domingo stubbornly urged on the search.Polly continued to observe her captain whenever she had the chance.She had tried to convince herself that she was accompanying him on this mad expedition at least in part for the sake of her children, to rid the Milkpail of the horror called Old Blue so that these little worlds would offer safe places in which her offspring might grow up and live.That would have been a worthy goal, but in her heart she knew better.She was doing this because she could not really help herself.The man I love, she thought, gazing again at his intercom image and wondering about him and about herself.She had no history of falling as drastically as this for men.Particularly for men who showed no special interest in her.She wondered also if her feelings were obvious to others.Probably they would be, she decided, if everyone weren't moving around in a state of benumbed shock just now, if all this hell weren't going on.Maybe then her attitude would have been noticeable even to him.Now she wished that she had managed to talk to Gennadius about him before they left BaseFour Twenty-five.But she hadn't.There hadn't really been time, for one thing.The base commander had been continuously busy.And Domingo had seemed strong and capable again—as he still did—and he and Gennadius had obviously been at least temporarily at odds with each other.She wanted to have a real talk with Iskander sometime, too; she thought she didn't understand him at all.But so far she had somehow not been able to arrange it.She thought that Baza was now closer to Domingo than anyone else was, though the relationship did not seem to fall into any neat category.Page 37ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlHer worry about Domingo was as intense as before, though now, active in the chase, he looked stronger and more capable than ever, and his behavior since they had left the base had given her no new cause for alarm.He seemed buoyed up, energetic and almost happy, as long as he could keep driving toward his goal of vengeance.Vengeance on a piece of metal, as Gennadius had described it at one point.But Polly was worried by Domingo's happy energy.He's going to snap, she thought.Or something.He hasn't had time to grieve over his daughter properly yet.Coming on top of what happened ten years ago, the shock of Maymyo's death has turned him away, somehow, from being human.There were periods, sometimes of hours, more often only of minutes, when she almost managed to convince herself that her fears were wrong, based on a mistaken assessment.He was just an extraordinarily tough man, and he had survived the blow of his daughter's death.Naturally he was still enraged at the universe, and challenging his bitter fate.Eventually he was going to be all right.But the conviction could not last for long; her fears returned.Carrying out the search for microscopic evidence just the way Domingo wanted it done was not an easy job.In the common room, at the daily meeting for discussion and planning, GujarSidoruk protested: "We need a fleet to do this properly."Domingo paid little attention to the protest [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]