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attempt to apprehend him
!! Immediately contact the local police then take cover!!
From
Allplanet Fax & Pix, December 4, 2080
Dallas and Maria could read day-old newspapers and week-old magazines by
punching them up from a public library data base. None of the news reports
they read, from sensational tabloid to stuffy current-
events analysis journal, said anything about the possibility that they might
have escaped Earth. Of course that didn't mean that no one suspected, or
possibly even knew for sure. The Stileman Foundation appeared to have the
media well under control. As the weeks went by, their story drifted from page
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
one back toward oblivion.
MARIA
Our flight profile originally called for forty-five minutes of deceleration at
three gees, uncomfortable but not dangerous, saving fuel. The tugboat captain
Blinky Bukowski was waiting for us about twelve thousand klicks from Ceres. He
was actually in Ceres orbit, of course, but the period of the orbit was over
two hundred hours, creeping along at about a hundred meters per second.
He talked through the prerendezvous phase with me, and I was comfortable with
his competence. He tilted the plane of his parking orbit to match ours, and
then timed its circularization so that we both ought to arrive at about the
same spot at about the same time. We didn't plan on mechanical failure,
though, least of all of a dramatic kind.
file:///H|/eMule/Incoming/Haldeman,%20Joe%20-%20Buying%20Time(1989)[v1].htm
(118 of 219)15-8-2005 0:24:35
BUYING TIME - Joe Haldeman
Ceres had been an invisible mote through most of our journey. It was visible
the last few days, finally becoming the brightest thing in the sky, and
growing into a disc.
It was the size of a Klondike dollar when I flipped us around. Dallas and I
strapped ourselves in and waited for the count from Blinky's computer. I would
have to initiate the deceleration manually, which could introduce an error of
as much as a tenth or twentieth of a second. A timer would cut it off forty-
five minutes and nineteen seconds later, whether or not I was paying
attention, or conscious. Then we would look around for Blinky.
The three gees wasn't too bad. I was tired, though, and closed my eyes after a
few minutes, which could have been fatal. But my ears popped suddenly, and I
forced my eyes open.
The "life-support malfunction" light was on.
I touched the emergency shutoff button on the armrest and we were weightless.
"What's that?" Dallas said, his voice oddly distant.
"Losing air." We both looked back at the galley viewport this time it was the
bottom of the "custom-
installed" window, and it had popped out so far we could see a thin black
crescent of space from across the cabin. Air rushed through it in a constant
low sigh.
I was out of my straps first. "Get the suits," I said unnecessarily, and
kicked toward the porthole, ripping off my blouse to stuff in the gap.
There was quite a bit of wind; enough, I was afraid, to suck the blouse on
through, but it did hold. It was fairly porous material, though, and I could
feel that we were still losing air fast. I told Dallas, and as he brought the
space suits over, he stopped at the refrigerator for a beer. That was
perplexing, until he shook it up, popped it, and saturated the cloth. It
frosted over into a solid mass.
But we had already lost too much air. I was gasping as if I had run several
kilometers. Black dots swarmed in front of my eyes and my hands and arms felt
palsied. It seemed very cold.
The Russian suits are made to go on quickly: main zipper; gloves; helmet lock.
But you have to undress first. I had on dancing tights, and although I could
force my thumbs under the waistband, I couldn't seem to get them down. I was
both frightened and somehow giddy, almost giggling at the absurdity of not
being able to perform this simple act. Dallas slipped out of his jumpsuit and
swam over to help me. I had never seen a man shrink in the cold, of course,
and that did make me giggle. Dallas had taken my pants off a few times before,
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