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way down. If anything should malfunction, just tap into my channel. I'll be
right above you all the way down."
"OK."
"Ready?"
Justin gulped hard and nodded. All the way out on the weekend shuttle from
the Academy to the Skyhook he had been trying to figure out some way to get
out of this mess. He half-suspected thatSeay knew he wanted out, and in
response was leaning on him more to go through with it. Justin felt cornered,
once again cursing himself for going along with this insane suggestion to
"join the team."
Until this very second he had been hoping for some convenient excuse or,
better yet, the divinely inspired intervention of some real ailment.Brian had
insisted upon eating before the jump and Justin had been tempted to get some
sushi in the Skyhook tourist section--with luck it might have had bacteria in
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it. But then he realized that even if by a rare chance some bacteria did show
up it'd be a while before it made him sick, whereas the taste of raw fish in
his mouth just before a jump might have a more immediate consequence. He had
settled for a chocolate milk shake, figuring that would not pose a problem
even though it could not save him from his fate.
Brian walked over to Matt and checked him over, then sat down in a support
chair and strapped his own gear on.
"Ready to depressurize," he finally announced and Justin tensed as the alarm
bell sounded and then faded away into the silence of vacuum. The door into
space slid open, sunlight streaming in.
"All right, who'sgonna be first?"
There was a moment of silence until Matt chimed in on the headset. "Sure,
I'll be the hero."
"Then let's go for it!Everettfirst.Bell , you follow. We're not doing any
formation stuff, but I want a tight pattern, ten-second intervals."
Justin waited for Matt to stand up and hobble towards the door. Justin stood
up, straining against the weight of the suit, feeling the power servos kick
in. Clumsily he took a step; the servos sensed his move and activated the
suit's leg, and he lurched forward like Frankenstein.
He shambled out on to the platform and looked around. Matt was already out on
the gangplank extending from the walkway that encircled the tower. Justin
gazed up, awed by the tower that soared straight towards the heavens. A car
shot upward ontibe track behind him, disappearing from view within seconds.
Another car streaked down, snapping silently past them.
He looked around the walkway at the tourists moving clumsily in their space
suits, closing in around them to watch the show. None of them were tuned into
his circuit but he could see their faces, mouths moving silently, several
waving encouragement, a few shaking their heads as if he were crazy. Many of
them were already crowding up to the side of the walkway, hands clinging to
the wire fencing which prevented the overly eager from tumbling into space.
Unfortunately, the platform he was on had no such safety devices.
"Hey, buddy, come on out!" Matt cried. 'The view is great." Matt made a show
of jumping up and down on the gangplank as if it were a diving board.
Justin carefully stepped up to the edge of the gangplank, which looked like a
diving board with handrails on the side, and then made the mistake of looking
over the side.
Instinctively he clutched the handrails for dear life, his knees turning to
jelly. Earth was five hundredklicks straight down. The city ofRio was directly
below, and theAtlantic Ocean sparkled to the east. To the south the coastline
curved away and he could clearly see the line of glittering white beaches that
separated the blue of the ocean from the dark green of tropical growth. Early
morning clouds were just beginning to appear over the jungle, soon to grow
into towering thunderheads. Far to the west he thought he could see the peaks
of theAndes catching the first light of dawn.
He knew it was beautiful he tried to focus on that but the end of the diving
board was only a couple meters ahead.
"Hey, Bell, look out for this next step, it's a killer!" Matt chortled.
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"All right, you two," Brian announced."Timesawasting . No fancy chutework, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]