"Escolha do jogador" (1971) por Bob Shaw, coletada em Mundos Alienígenas: Histórias de Aventura em Outros Planetas (1981), juntamente com um excerto de "Fora do Planeta Silencioso". A história original é coletada em archive.org, aqui .
O nome do cara é Mike Targett e o do computador é Aesop.
Parece haver pelo menos duas versões dessa história, porque o link archive.org acima não tem o "alvo de volta", enquanto a coleção Ship of Strangers (1978) tem ( Link do Google Livros :
'This is lovely material for my book, Mike.' Clifford Pollen's reedy voice was pitched with excitement as he leaned across the mess table. 'I'm going to call the chapter “The Day The Targett Started Shooting Back”. Good isn't it?'
Mike Targett, who had learned to endure every possible joke about his surname, nodded his head. 'Very original, that.'
Mais precisamente ...
Michael Target se prepara para examinar misteriosos cilindros de metal deixados por uma corrida anterior. Eu acho que ele disse que havia cerca de 200. Eles são longos e finos, tanto quanto me lembro.
Scattered across the level ground — in random groupings — were hundreds of slim black cylinders, the nearest only a few dozen paces from Targett. They were about twenty feet in length and tapered at each end. Targett’ s heart began a steady, peaceful pounding as it came to him that the alien objects certainly were not discarded canisters, as Surgenor had suggested. He took the miniature television camera from his belt, plugged it briefly into the suit’s powerpack and aimed it at the nearest cylinders.
“Aesop,” he said. “I’ve made visual contact.”
De repente, um deles se inclina e Michael corre para se esconder. Ele atira nele, destruindo o aparelho de criação de ar que ele usa nas costas.
“Scan your surroundings. If you see a rock formation that would give you protection against machine rifle fire — go to it immediately!”
“What’s the matter?” Targett glanced around the shimmering plateau.
“Don’t ask questions,” Surgenor’s voice cut in. “Do as Aesop says. Run for cover.”
“But—”
Targett’s voice faded as his peripheral vision picked up a sudden movement. He turned toward it and saw that — in the center of the plateau — one of the hundreds of cylinders had reared its sharp end at an angle into the air. It was swaying slowly and blindly, as though supported by a loose wire. [...]
He slid a gloved hand around to the lower part of his back where the bullet had struck, felt an unfamiliar jagged edge of metal. His probing fingers discovered a crumpled, boxlike object — the ruins of his oxygen generator.
O computador da nave de Michael mente para ele, dizendo que ele pode ver o que está acontecendo através de sua câmera lá fora. Na realidade, ele faz o melhor possível para calcular quando o mesmo cilindro chega ao alcance. Eventualmente, um é atingido duas vezes, explodindo e cegando todos os outros.
“Perhaps all those explosions burned it out.” “No.” Aesop paused. “Transmissions ceased when you dropped the camera. There is a good probability that the switch got jarred to the off position.”
“Very likely. 1 was moving — ” Targett stopped speaking as a disturbing thought occurred to him. “Then you lied to me. You weren’t able to track the torpedoes—”
“That is correct.”
“But you were telling me when to fire. How did you know I would hit one of the torpedoes twice?”
“I didn’t.” Aesop’s voice was precise, unruffled. “This is something you in particular should understand, Michael. I simply took a chance.”
Encontrado com a consulta do Google "Your meaning is not clear to me, Michael" .