Merrit's head snapped around, seeking the speaker which had produced that polite, melodious voice. He didn't see it, but he did see the bright red warning light under the four-millimeter power rifle which had just unhoused itself from the wall above the console to aim directly between his eyes. He stared into its bore for a long, tense second, and the voice spoke again.

"Identification is required. Please identify yourself immediately."

"Ah, Merrit," he said hoarsely, then licked his lips and cleared his throat. "Captain Paul A. Merrit, Dinochrome Brigade, serial number Delta-Bravo-One-Niner-Eight-Zero-Niner-Three-Slash-Five-Bravo-One-One."

"You are not in my personnel files, Captain," the soprano remarked. He started to reply, but the voice continued before he could. "I compute, however, a probability of niner-niner point niner-niner-three percent that those files are no longer current. Query: Have you been issued a file update for me?"

Merrit blinked in disbelief. Even the current Mark XXV Bolo retained the emotionless vocoder settings of the earlier marks and normally referred to itself in the military third person except to its own commander. This voice, however calm and dispassionate it might be, not only used first person but sounded fully human. More than that, it carried what he could only call emotional overtones, and the nature of its questions implied a degree of discretionary autonomy which was impossible even for the Mark XXV except in Battle Mode.

On the other hand, he thought, still peering into the power rifle's muzzle, this was no time to be picky over details.

"Yes," he said after a moment. "I do have a personnel update for you."

"Good," the voice said-another response which raised Merrit's eyebrows afresh. "Please understand that no discourtesy is intended, Captain, but the security of this installation requires that no unattested data be input to the master computer system. I therefore request that you enter your data into the secondary terminal beside the door."