good hard vacuum. Rossa gnawed at her lower lip in between sips: I could tell that because she gnawed just to the point of pain, and little pinpoint pains were flashing on and off in my own lip. “You’re biting your lip,” I told her when I’d worked it out.
“So I am.” The lip bulged as she ran her tongue around the inside. “Sorry. I do this sometimes. At least my migraines don’t trouble me too much; I do hope they won’t trouble you either...”
Wui looked up from a plate of soya chunks that smelled a damn sight more tasty and attractive than the same dish yesterday and the day before and the day before that. “Did I hear a word or two that might be classified, my children?”
“No,” I said. “Tell me, Rossa, doesn’t it get a mite confusing with you and all those others in CommAux transmitting away. Should think I’d be picking up white noise from all those inputs.” What would a white noise of pain be like? Like napalm all over?
“I don’t know whether that part is classified ... no, I don’t see how they can tell you some of it and not the rest. The sensitizer is, well, personalized. We give RNA samples, and there’s a terribly creaky old organic-synth robot that replicates the stuff...”
“_I_ see. Your very own private coded dope, none other is genuine. Just for me and somebody else back home, here. I wonder who. That another classified thing,Mick y?Mick y?”
Wui was lifting his plastic fork with what looked like a lump of volcanic slag on the end of it. He put the lump down again. “Oh, Birch had a brainstorm about that one. It is just so typically Birch ... He thought about it this way and that, he thought about how signals of vast classification level would come through should you find out anything really interesting—and he decided he didn’t really trust anyone in Tunnel to know more than him about anything such. So he’ll be taking the shot himself—when you’re safely through the gate and with the what d’you call it, the antidote ready all day and all night in case heavy pains should come through...”
“Cutoff dope, we call it,” Rossa said. “The official term is something along the lines of ‘gamma-coded RNA phage.’”
“Could be fun,” I said. “We can maybe stick the odd pin into Birch when the outward trip’s over—keep him on his toes. I can stand it if you can stand it, Rossa...”
“You don’t have some of the places where I’d like to punch old man Birch,” Wui said to her darkly.
“This caper means he’s fixed himself a billet as the only Corvus information line if Tunnel closes ... God, nearly 1300 already. I’ll have to start the check sequence if Cathy hasn’t done it all three times, and I expect she has. Report to Medical in half an hour, then, folks. Wear your best pajamas, uphold the pride of the Force in distant lands.” He smiled, all nerves and no humor at all: “Didn’t they say ‘join the Force and see the world’? Yes. Well, remember what I said.” He went out of the room almost at a run, as if he couldn’t stand to be in the same room as us anymore.
“He looks so dreadfully guilty,” Rossa said.
“My guess is there’s some other little thing they haven’t told us. Maybe the second-class transit doesn’t work as well as they’d like. Maybe there’s a big chance we end up as a couple of hundred kilos of frozen mince going around Mars or Pluto.” I could see I was talking like Wui to stop myself thinking too hard about where in a bit under two hours the pathway of my own life was coming to a narrow exit, which was perfectly round and 1.9 centimeters in diameter. “Maybe it’s all a big hoax, and every month when the Tunnel food runs low they draft another couple of suckers to be sliced apart—really the MT rig is a gadget for converting people to soya granules, and ... oh, never mind that.” I didn’t have to look at her. “You’re biting your lip again, and hard.”
“Once I suffered terribly from
“So I am.” The lip bulged as she ran her tongue around the inside. “Sorry. I do this sometimes. At least my migraines don’t trouble me too much; I do hope they won’t trouble you either...”
Wui looked up from a plate of soya chunks that smelled a damn sight more tasty and attractive than the same dish yesterday and the day before and the day before that. “Did I hear a word or two that might be classified, my children?”
“No,” I said. “Tell me, Rossa, doesn’t it get a mite confusing with you and all those others in CommAux transmitting away. Should think I’d be picking up white noise from all those inputs.” What would a white noise of pain be like? Like napalm all over?
“I don’t know whether that part is classified ... no, I don’t see how they can tell you some of it and not the rest. The sensitizer is, well, personalized. We give RNA samples, and there’s a terribly creaky old organic-synth robot that replicates the stuff...”
“_I_ see. Your very own private coded dope, none other is genuine. Just for me and somebody else back home, here. I wonder who. That another classified thing,Mick y?Mick y?”
Wui was lifting his plastic fork with what looked like a lump of volcanic slag on the end of it. He put the lump down again. “Oh, Birch had a brainstorm about that one. It is just so typically Birch ... He thought about it this way and that, he thought about how signals of vast classification level would come through should you find out anything really interesting—and he decided he didn’t really trust anyone in Tunnel to know more than him about anything such. So he’ll be taking the shot himself—when you’re safely through the gate and with the what d’you call it, the antidote ready all day and all night in case heavy pains should come through...”
“Cutoff dope, we call it,” Rossa said. “The official term is something along the lines of ‘gamma-coded RNA phage.’”
“Could be fun,” I said. “We can maybe stick the odd pin into Birch when the outward trip’s over—keep him on his toes. I can stand it if you can stand it, Rossa...”
“You don’t have some of the places where I’d like to punch old man Birch,” Wui said to her darkly.
“This caper means he’s fixed himself a billet as the only Corvus information line if Tunnel closes ... God, nearly 1300 already. I’ll have to start the check sequence if Cathy hasn’t done it all three times, and I expect she has. Report to Medical in half an hour, then, folks. Wear your best pajamas, uphold the pride of the Force in distant lands.” He smiled, all nerves and no humor at all: “Didn’t they say ‘join the Force and see the world’? Yes. Well, remember what I said.” He went out of the room almost at a run, as if he couldn’t stand to be in the same room as us anymore.
“He looks so dreadfully guilty,” Rossa said.
“My guess is there’s some other little thing they haven’t told us. Maybe the second-class transit doesn’t work as well as they’d like. Maybe there’s a big chance we end up as a couple of hundred kilos of frozen mince going around Mars or Pluto.” I could see I was talking like Wui to stop myself thinking too hard about where in a bit under two hours the pathway of my own life was coming to a narrow exit, which was perfectly round and 1.9 centimeters in diameter. “Maybe it’s all a big hoax, and every month when the Tunnel food runs low they draft another couple of suckers to be sliced apart—really the MT rig is a gadget for converting people to soya granules, and ... oh, never mind that.” I didn’t have to look at her. “You’re biting your lip again, and hard.”
“Once I suffered terribly from
Similar Books
