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[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] The distribution set him slowly spinning, too. He corrected that with a minimal jet impulse and floated free. The ship fell away and the galactic river encompassed him. t He didn't notice. Readouts in his helmet glowed across the constellations. He picked sightings as they went by and ordered them entered, "This.... This.... This...." The choices were more or less arbitrary, but, combined, they gave his suit's computer the means to calculate his vectors. Generating illusionary crosshairs, he centered them on his target. "Go max!" His jetpack started him off at low boost, not to build up undue velocity. Beneath its murmur his earplugs still carried an obbligato of words. He wasn't in an inboard circuit any more, but he was in the beam between ship and lens. "What are your intentions? You are evidently the ves-sel I was informed about. You were supposed to be in-tercepted. I have registered not only neutrino emissions from antimatter reactions, but the radiation of nuclear blasts. Our ships do not respond to my calls. You have harmed them, have you not? Your actions are unlawful." Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html "So you've deduced that. Well, you are a sophotect, not a robot, aren't you?" "I have a mind dedicated to the observatory." It was as if the cold around his armor, near absolute zero, struck through into Fenn. He had known of that electrophotonic brain, but only now did its 'inhuman iso-lation, its absolute unhumanness, become real for him. He rallied. However powerful in its work, the intellect must be narrow and naive. Guthrie would try to keep it engaged. Fenn was a minor object, and though the in-strumentation would doubtless register him before he ar-rived, he wasn't on a collision course at the moment. He ought to pass as a meteoroid outrageously improbable in these hollow immensities, but no hazard, nothing to call to the sophotect's attention. An alarm tone buzzed. His own instruments were pick-ing up stray radiation from atoms encountering the de-fense field. He was about to enter it. He switched off radio, jets, life-support systems, everything dependent on electronics, and hurtled through silence. A faint tug, a faint sense of warmth eddy currents, heating the metal he wore and bore, slowing him down. That effect was slight, but to a delicate control circuit, the induction would be like a boot crashing into crystal. En route, he and Guthrie had put in as much shielding as they were able to. Shut down, some of the modules might not be too badly damaged. Or they might be. There was no telling beforehand. However, the guardian field could not have more than a certain intensity. The power plant inside yonder spher-oid was limited. Also, the field must be heterodyned to form a shell at a considerable distance from the lens; else it would ruinously interfere with the work. In principle, it was like the screens that deflected charged particles from spacecraft and space stations. Instead of protecting, it was designed to destroy to scramble, overload, oblit-erate. But he, flying inert, should pass through in a few minutes. A galvanometer braceleted on his left wrist, faintly luminous, dropped its reading to zero. He was through. The golden point ahead had waxed to a tiny disk, rap-fdly growing. Its spiderweb snared stars. He shouldn't strike those antennae. It was time to regain the helm, slow down, and get properly aimed. No new displays appeared in his helmet. Nor did the jetpack immediately start. Fuel cells and accumulators were unaffected, of course, so he had power, and jury-rigged mechanical switches gave him restricted use of it. Several had already tripped automatically; he heard his air pump going, and suit temperature held fairly steady. Chemicals would blot up excess carbon dioxide and wa-ter vapor. Otherwise his biostat was dead: no purification, no recycling. That didn't matter. He'd be back aboard ship before he urgently needed it, or else he'd be dead himself. He took hold of the improvised manual controls at-tached to the breast of his suit. The system was clumsy and he'd had only stinted practice with it, a couple of sessions during the voyage when Dagny ceased boost and he could go outside. He'd have to navigate by eyeball and whatever feel for space flying he had developed as a boy around the Habitat. Well, he'd always shown an aptitude. Lateral thrusts slewed him around. He brought his right arm before his face. Attached was a Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html backward-looking periscope with an objective graduated in phosphorescent circles and radii. When he snugged his wrist into a bracket under his helmet, he could center the spheroid and know he was pointed approximately right and ap-proximately how far he had to go. Not much of a guide, but the best he and Guthrie could make. He activated the jets again, carefully, carefully, though his sole accelerometer was his body and his sole radar his eyes. A star drifted across the stars, Dagny. She seemed in-finitely distant, as if she lay in the sky above Sananton. His mouth was Mars-dry, his tongue a block of wood. He could have sucked from his water nipple, but dared take no attention from his task. The periscope image kept shifting off the midpoint. He must readjust, over-compensate,readjust , hunting. Sweat soaked his inner garb, stung his eyes,fumed rank in his nostrils. The spheroid swelled at him. He was coming in too fast. He nudged the boost. Half a minute later he made his guess and switched the motor off. He struck with an impact that rammed through shins and spine to rattle his jaws. He had already energized his gripsoles, another system bypassing the electronics. Their induction held him fast. He stood [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |