Mens (english version) Read online

  12.

  It was everything absurd. For first thing, I was not to earth, but at the same time I was not standing; I started to look around me without moving the head.

  I saw the floor: a metallic grille suspended on a dark fund to around a meter from my eyes. And I felt me the feet! It was unbelievable, but I had the perception of a throw of air on my feet, even if I would not have known how to say very more.

  The world was I deprive of sounds. The circular vision attacked me to the sudden one: I saw the walls, shiny and clean, and four figures in spatial overall without helmet next to me. One of their were near: its braccias were partially brims, while its hands disappeared under my visual horizon.

  I understood that you/he/she was doing me something; to my body, I intend. I saw the lips of the people that stirred but I could not understand anything.

  We surely found us in a shuttle of some type, perhaps in an area freighter, and obviously endowed with inside atmosphere. I went on the web and I looked for the extreme for a transport of the kind; a flight toward the orbital station was recorded in a database of the city administration, but you/he/she was not specified big that. All the external transmissions to the shuttle, also supporting himself/herself/itself to the web, they were criptate. I had to interact in direct way. Scansionai that that I saw to all the frequencies, but with a narrow window, peering at a small portion of the ghost to the time: the infrared ones said that the environment was not heated, but it was not even cold. The breaths of the astronauts produced small puffs of aqueous vapor.

  In the field of the radio waves the shuttle was not dark: I saw the irradiation of the waves, discontinuous but present, that weakly illuminated the walls and it produced everywhere slim reflections. I could easily distinguish who spoke: a diffused luminescence was propagated by its transmitter every time that the lips stirred. Even if that men could directly communicate to voice, the transmitter of the overall was always active to do yes that the ship could record every event that happened on board; the data were added to the diagrams of respiraton, pulsation, perspiration, physiological rhythms and state of the nervous system of each. Privacy doesn't exist in the space. The ship rebroadcasted criptando to earth the signal, but I directly received from the overall. I tightened more and more the gang to tall frequency, overlapping you the ghost of the visible one, until the movements of the lips they were perfectly in synchronous with the radioondes that I observed. I had individualized the frequency of the transmissions.

  «Hi» I said, to that same frequency.

  «Ted?» churches someone.

  The four astronauts looked him: you/they had heard the voice but none of them had spoken. Ted was the pilot and was for his/her facts in the cockpit.

  «Angel» I corrected.

  The astronaut that was me nearer visibly jolted; for a moment my world started. In an instant of slanting perception I saw that the man held my body in hand, the limbs almost dangled me until to earth.

  «Ehm. The ams Rexel. gentleman.» it said the hand, to which The wases practically in neck.

  Rather embarrassing.

  «To like to know her/it Rexel. Where devil am I/you/they?»

  «On board of the shuttle for the orbital station. Well wakened, gentleman.»

  I was decidedly in a vain freighter, I saw above of me the line of connection of the great external hatches; the central space of the vehicle was also devoted to the transport of people: there was a line of seats, raw and uncomfortable, provided of safety belts and it leans back. They were at least an about ten.

  «You/he/she can put down me, if he/she believes. Close to her there is a free place» I said.

  «Ehm. The have tried, gentleman. But the safety belt doesn't adapt him for. The wants to say. to.»

  «An iron ball» concluded.

  Rexel became of an almost amusing vermilion red.

  «You don't worry him» I added. «I don't pick up me her. You/he/she should see my form when I operate on the Earth.»

  «Yes gentleman.»

  «The station misses a lot it?»

  «Few minutes.»

  Rexel was damnedly young and damnedly to uneasiness. Possession this coso in hand that was a person had to be too much for one that had from not too long dismesso the Monopolies. Looking well at them. they were all young people, that boys; the trips in the space didn't ask for extreme specializations anymore, almost whoever was able to get by with to minimum of preparation.

  «Mr.?» it said another of them looking at the sphere bracciuta that I was me.

  «Uhm» I did.

  «Him the face to see.»

  «As it would be? To whom?»

  «To anything has happened down there. Bring them home.»

  «You seem sure that is still you live.»

  The boy inhaled, as if the worse perspective had contemplated now only her.

  «We are him/it» it said Rexel. «With them there is Robin the best astronaut that we know. It has a great experience.»

  I understood them. On Mars their companions had remained there; could happen to whoever it made that work. They had to think that the things would have been resolved.

  «Here Ted, boys» the pilot joined in conversation. «Time of arrival thirty second. I fear we will have to wait in tail: the berths are all full ones and the portholes of service they are busy from manutentori in transit.»

  Rexel anticipated of an instant my questions.

  «You/they are widening the orbital station» it said. «Too shuttles and few accesses. In this period to climb on board it is an enterprise. The other day we have had to also wait for twenty minutes for the berths in cable.»

  «What they would be.» The said.

  «They send us a steel cable and we hook him/it to us to a side of the shuttle. Then, vehicular extra activity. We fix there to the cable with a moschettone and we reach the hatches of service. We enter from there.»

  «We cannot wait. The situation on Mars can be serious» I affirmed.

  I didn't have any intention to waste precious minutes.

  One of the astronauts looked me with a pinch of obstacle.

  «Unfortunately the station is not alone our» it said. «Even if immediately gives us the cable we cannot enter before the employees to the construction have cleared away the field.»

  «A fried cabbage» I exclaimed.

  Considering that those had called me gentleman they had to attribute me a certain authority, and I would have used her. Someone of the young fellow opened wide the eyes.

  «It feels me, Ted?» I added.

  The pilot owed to have followed our conversations because you/he/she had understood very well who he turned him.

  «Mr.?»

  «He/she calls the tallest in degree of ours on the station. What I/you/he/she make me come to take in the department of service in five minutes.»

  «Understands.»

  «Boys, insert you the helmets and we open the portholes of load. We see this neighbor station.»

  «Sissignore» it said the more astronaut away from me.

  They inserted the whole helmet, then someone you have to operate the commands because the air quickly flowed out with a damped hiss. The hatches above their heads and my capoccione started to open. It was a slow and enervating thing; the stars gradually appeared in the sky, bright and immovable. Only when the steel plates reached end run the station it became visible: the superior part of the construction capolinava above the hull of the shuttle. It was apparently a disjointed heap of containers of all the forms and dimensions, I interconnected by narrow circular channels semirigidi. A side portion seemed monca: it projected in the space long metallic gun carriage that sparkled with white-blue light. That had to be the yard.

  The Earth was not seen, it had to be correct from the opposite side of the shuttle.

  «Ted» I called. «Wheel some the ship. I want to see the whole station, here, from the hold of load.»

  «Immediately, gentlem
an» it said the pilot.

  Some instant after I had the vision of the station that apparently he lifted together with the stars, until it brought him above our heads. The shuttle jammed in position.

  We were not near: I observed the docks of berth filled of shuttles similar to mine and the zone of service with the wide open enormous portholes. There was there a maddish bustle of men and a halves; all stirred with an infuriating slowness. I knew that the safety protocols on the station were enough rigid.

  «He/she wants to enter from that entry, gentleman?» Rexel asked me. It alluded to the uproar in front of us.

  «If it is the only possible.» The answereds.

  «There are no berths in cable, there nearby. We will have to stop us from another part and to make a stroll of different minutes.»

  «I have a best idea» I said. «Let's approach us how much we are able. Rexel, practice sport?»

  «Be', natural.» he/she answered, burdens amazed.

  «Baseball. As if as pitcher gets by?»

  The boy had understood.

  «Thing? Mr., it doesn't seem me to great it conceives. We will have to approach us of quite a lot, more than the allowed by the rule. Besides she would beat a beautiful blow to the arrival, gentleman and Ted he would take a lecture from the commander of the station.»

  «And an encomium from our mayor. If it feels her/it, Ted?» I asked.

  «Eccome» it said the pilot.

  «Let's do him/it» I ordered.

  I immediately perceived a light acceleration, then nient'altro. Ted was a laconic type, however he/she didn't sleep. The station was slowly magnified but in appreciable way. We moved there to constant speed. Rexel got up and been said a light push with the feet: we approached us to the external wall of the shuttle, Rexel it was grabbed with the left arm to the nearest paratia easily holding me in hand with the right.

  «Ted, warn when you have reached the point limit» it said Rexel.

  The station was great, now. Distavamo no more than fifty meters from the enormous opening; many workers in spatial overall turned him verse of us making us frightened signs. I felt Ted, it had to be him, that lowly snickered: if you/he/she was enjoying her/it. The shuttle stopped him with sweetness. We were immovable.

  «Terminal» it said Ted. «Ever felt so many insults by radio in my life.»

  The bridge of command had to be full of people shaken for the manoeuvre of the pilot. I almost felt me proud of him.

  Rexel slowly inhaled, taking the aim. It pushed away me with a fluid and continuous gesture, of whom knows to manage the weights in absence of gravity. It didn't launch me strong; unintentionally a light rotation had also engraved me, but it didn't care: my sight was to circulate however and I didn't take the risk to have fits of dizziness.

  «Be', boys, have been a pleasure» I greeted.

  Everybody responded together and they didn't make me understand a word. I imagine they were sentences of leave. I continued in silence.

  For the first time I had the vision of the Earth, enormous and bright, that rose behind the shuttle: even in my best expectations I had foreseen the impression that I tried. Who works in the space it is fortunate indeed.

  I had to make an aware effort to assemble me on that that it happened me: I was approaching me to the station in the wrong direction. The throwing of Rexel had not been so precise, after all. According to my perspective I would have gone to beat on the external plates of the station to around half meter from the opening. I could perhaps do something to make up for; if I/you had used my legs I would have been able to stretch me so that to grab a whatever prominence on the steel surfaces. I tried to check the limbs, as I had always done with the my old corpaccio. Curse. My pylon zampucces mentioned an out movement, then they remained to dangle as the tentacles of a jellyfish.

  "Oh no" I thought. I would have had to learn to walk again. I tried to make some practice before the impact. I combined few and badly.

  Then I became me account that I had underestimated Rexel. Between station and shuttle it owed us to be a least difference of speed, because to few second from the impact it was evident that I would comfortably have entered the body semioscuro of the vain one of service.