Mens (english version) Page 13
13.
«What devil it is' st'affare?» it told a worker silvery overall.
It held me in hand scrutinizing me from all the sides. You/he/she was talking to a companion and it slightly shook me. My legs hung in useless way.
I had succeeded in drawing the frequencies of transmission of the station in the same way of first: a rapids scanning in the ghost radio.
«I don't recognize the piece» it said the companion studying me with indifference.
For an instant temetti that would have inserted after all me in some box to the store: I saw shelves on full shelves of mechanical components and a well equipped shop for the workmanship of the steel.
I had entered some second first without nobody acknowledged nothing, I had given a sonorous capocciata on a wall and I had bounced here and there. But I was inside.
Another worker he was quickly approaching; it had a minuscule backpack propulsivo, of those that disappear in the overall. I didn't believe that they gave a similar speed. The new arrival had a shining white overall, on the breast it made beautiful show of itself the flag of our city.
«Boys, that stuff is mine» it said.
The stuff to which referred I was me. The man that held me in hand handed me to him with satisfaction: a piece that he is not known where you/he/she has to be you/he/she is always a puzzle of which you/he/she can be done to less.
«Coop more careful, another time, lieutenant» it said the worker. «You/he/she could end in the furnace.»
I was not an expert of the station, but the furnace I knew what it was: some worker had the vice to free himself/herself/themselves of casting I pour him/it the Earth because the atmosphere destroyed him/it. It was a practice convict from the press of all the cities, but it saved the job of the disposal.
«Already» it said my new carrier «I would not be me expected to find here it.»
This last wisecrack was certain for me, a delicate criticism of which I heard the whole irony. I cared the correct one: to me it interested to do soon, if someone preferred to follow the official roads. beh, could go to make himself/herself/themselves to colonscopia.
The man grabbed well me, then you/he/she made a sign of regard to the workers and you/he/she departed to rocket.
It was an instructive even if brief small trip, finished in perfect silence. The man didn't seem intenzionato to chat and I was incuriosito from the environment that you/he/she surrounded me; nevertheless lost soon interest to the monotonous sequence of stores and laboratories and I devoted me to the use of my legs. They were all and four free, so I could make the tests that I wanted. I made a rapids combination of the stimuli that was able to produce and that, I believed, you/they would have been able to create a movement. I started to despair, when my right anterior limb (as what I felt anterior right, my body had a perfect radial symmetry) quickly stirred and it kicked to everything field sinking in the fabric sovrapuberale of the overall of the lieutenant. The man didn't result damaged of it, since the overall was more strong, but however certain if it didn't wait for him: it slightly folded up him in before and you have to compensate downward the light skidding.
«Sorry» I said. «Test of deambulazione.»
«Let's show up us» that responded. «But it is better to wait for making four chatters.»
It was right: on the frequencies common of the station we would have been listened by everybody, better maintaining a certain reserve on my nature and of my mission. There had been after all the destruction of the reserves of iridium on the Earth and who knows what on Mars.
We flew in a corridor that he was gradually reducing of diameter; when we reached the door it was wide less than two meters. We entered a place of decompression and my companion, once concluded the procedure, you/he/she could get away the helmet of the overall with evident satisfaction.
I was satisfied also me: I had made some test and the gambucces they started to collaborate.
We moved there of some about ten meters estranging us from the central body of the orbital station, toward a zone devoted to the lodgings of the personnel; we jumped inside the elastic burrows making taking on you seize him that they stuck out from the walls every three meters. For the truth I almost exclusively confined me to bounce, rotating under the weak pushes of the astronaut. We finally reached destination, a spherical stanzuccia of three meters around of diameter, an a little raised again in comparison to the median plan of the station. It was small, but the sight was magnificent: there was a big window that could rotate on the whole external surface showing the details of the great manufactured article suspended above the Earth. And, over that, there was the sky. The man directed the window toward the Moon: the pale light of the star dyed the insides of a waxen atmosphere. To that sight I became distracted me how much it was enough because the sudden light that illuminated the room took me of surprise; it was in the field of the radios so that and it sprang from the right hand of the guy that was nearby me. I easily individualized the used frequency.
«. etto if it feels me» it said his/her voice.
«I feel her» I confirmed.
The man made me a sign with the head.
«Perfect. This is the frequency with which it will communicate from now on. It is that that they use our boys on Mars and it is that of his/her laboratory on the Earth.»
«My laboratory?» I said me.
«Hi Angel. I hope that you are well» it told a voice that not stentai to recognize: it was doctor Berliz.
My channel web, until then silent, you/he/she was automatically activated to the call of Berliz; I saw to the right aloft the doctor in a quadratino, overlapped to my normal visual field.
«Hi doctor» I said some amazed. «You as if it passes her/it?»
Berliz never responded to questions of the kind.
«They are here to the laboratory to be of you assistance. technique, says. There are within shouting distance all those that you know, in the case I needed something according to their competences. We will do some extraordinary.»
«Fantastic» I said me.
While I was talking to Berliz I noticed that my mysterious companion was opening a locker in the wall; there was a some type of device, I saw the flashing lucettes that projected minuscule cones against the window.
«You will ask yourself because you are instead of already riding your propellers there» the doctor started.
Mentally smiles.
«I have not had a lot of time to ask me questions, from when I wake up on the shuttle» I beat.
The events it was true you/they had involved me without giving me the time to take breath for an instant. Berliz knitted the eyebrows.
«Wakened up? Do you want to say that you have been irresponsible up to a little while ago?»
«Already» I did me. «A beautiful sleep.»
I saw that the thing didn't return him; the man seemed to lowly talk to somebody else, then you/he/she returned to address verse of me.
«You are for receiving something there: the data that will serve you to go on to the mission.»
You/he/she had already liquidated the matter of my long sleep. It was not from him.
«You could send me them on the web» I said me.
Also this thing not the sconfinferavas. It twisted the mouth in a funny grimace.
«Too information» he/she slowly answered. «It is certain details they are available only where you find yourself.»
«Be'.» it was to lieutenant. «I am ready.»
I looked at him/it: it held an object in hand.
«You regret to tighten the visual field? It looks in before» it suggested Berliz. «We owe. to open you.»
«Ugh. of accord» The said.
They wanted to insert me inside something without I assisted. Typical of Berliz: it had the fixed one that I/you was disturbed from my mechanical hardware.
I observed only the window in front of me, but I widened the electromagnetic ghost of my sight; the object in the
hands of the astronaut was small and you/he/she had been inserted then in an active electronic device until: therefore it was still warm, from the reflex on the glass I saw the infrared ones that it sent forth. I focused me on the low frequencies and it appeared me before a writing in negative, the component's name; you/he/she had to have made of a substance that he/she was colder after all of the body. Read. That bargain was a storage device from an exabyte. Inside of me I had to have a compatible reader.
The schedina disappeared in my body. Almost immediately notaries a change in my configuration web: there was a new virtual site, assistant to those that I had inserted as preferred. I opened him with the same interface web, but it was evident that information didn't originate from the net: it was all resident stuff in my tummy.
«Received» I said.
Berliz fixed me expressionless. Says a glance so much for curiosity: gives on the rout and speed for the trip Earth-Mars, the technical characteristics of the vehicles that I would have piloted, planimetria and accurate altimetria of the whole surface Martian, human installations on the planet, location of the mines, curriculum vitae of the personnel of turn and relative charges, behavioral analysis of all the astronauts of our city and them up-to-date physical conditions. There was a tide of absurd information that you/they would never have served me. I allowed to lose to the moment.
«We have to go» it said the lieutenant. «They will be already ready with the propeller. We are at the end of the turn of watch and they are about to climb on our men.»
I didn't understand of what he/she spoke. A rapids glance to my exabyte and I learned that the station was substantially to military management; even if it was free zone, all the departments took some precautions to avoid whatever kind of problem. Every private zone was piantonata from the occupants; the common areas or to scientific vocation you/they were guarded instead purely by the soldiers of the various cities according to rotation turns.
The lieutenant opened the door with decision and conducted me, with the usual system of pushes, in a different direction from that of arrival; we crossed a big number of desert corridors.
Once we met only an officer of another city; the lieutenant greeted hard-working, the other one reciprocated ignoring me: I was only a palletta of metal that wandered skipping about against the walls; the officer you have to think that our lieutenant still had the spirit of the little boy to toy in this gravity way zero. I tried to make a wisecrack, but my companion seemed refractory to whatever form of humor.
I welcomed with relief the arrival to destination: it was the wing in construction of the orbital station. We were to the extremity that sank in the obscurity of the deep space, inside the last useful place to keep on breathing without the aid of the overall.
The lieutenant wore the helmet and depressurizzò.
«This cell is portable, you/he/she can be hooked form of the station to anybody else» he/she explained. «It serves for avoiding to make a lot of road going out of the usual portholes. Of fact, it belongs to the yard and you/he/she is moved with him. It is for the solos employed to the yard. Today it is for us.»
I didn't see soul long live around, but there were everywhere perhaps videocamere of overseeing. Behind of they there was now our soldiers, evidently. The lieutenant went out to the open one and grabbed me for a leg with abrupt movement; if I/you had ever met him wearing my old body, I preset me to make him the same treatment. I didn't try some physical bother, obviously, but I started to feel me nervous and susceptible: I was about to embark me in a trip of million of kilometers in solitary and I started to try some restlessness.
The lieutenant brought me different more meters in there while I tried to gather me in that metallic cobweb, that soon another series of habitable forms of the station would be become.
Without realizing of it we were ended in the cage: we were almost entirely inside a structure dam, realized in flexible steel nets. There were two other people, with us; they briskly worked in spatial overall, edged by cassettes for the utensils magnetized in support on the metallic superstructures. And here there my transport: two forms propelled you in fall, every to four nozzles, radially prepared to his/her own central body. The forms were sfalsati, so that the eight throws didn't overlap prospetticamente. Between a form and the other, a hold cylindrical wedge of reserves of oxygen and special food stuff.
I automatically resorted to the exabyte and I found the three-dimensional model of the vehicle: it was impromptu, but well thought. There was an issue of calculations concernenti the abilities of push and the simulations of the principal manoeuvres. Then I also found something on me: I observed a video that showed the anterior part, apparently cut and concave, which drew near outside the field a shiny sferetta coming from. My capoccio drew near to the vehicle and entered the hole to me devoted with a small clang; it followed something that I hardly recognized: it was a willing attempt of the planners to show as I would have felt the vehicle. There was there the void of the space before, in low a dash of download in progression overlapped to the external vision. Then the usual interface style web appeared to more windows with a thin network of coordinates.
Were the commands simple virtual buttons; the pages were quite a lot: diagnostic, does see, does change, date, guide, rout, on-line web, angel. angel? Apart that my name was written in minuscule (appropriate, considering that I was minuscule), that cabbage was us on me, there inside?
I was suddenly distracted by a real clang. I had been so assembled on the simulation that the lieutenant had just connected me to the vehicle without I realized me of it.
I allowed to lose the database and I looked around me with curiosity: my four braccias had remained out of the lodging, thing that didn't appear in the simulation, and the most pleasant surprise was that I could partially rotate my body so that to address my circular vision in all the possible directions.
It began the download as I expected me. It lasted a few minutes, in reality, but the displays and the windows exactly appeared as described in the exabyte. Only that, instead of being prepared on a plan, as you/he/she would have been for a simple human being, you/they were projected on the inside surface of a sphere whose center was me. Or who had realized the simulation it didn't exactly know my Royal ability, or you/they had worked to the saving.
The interface was notable; inclusive that the data that it was able to introduce originated from the exabyte however.
The massive structure of stored information it was dreadful: moving my visual field, a minuscule crossroad stirred with every time and it that it touched a star it gave me the relative data with particular to me incomprehensible. I turned me how much I was able from that position and I framed the Moon, some at random. My goodness! When the crossroad touched something. to peak, to crater, drafts also element of the lunar surface, the system told me everything that that he/she knew.
Since I was in slow movement together with the station orbitante, the window him refreshava continuously confusing me the ideas, already enough confused for loro account.
Then I understood. I disabled the crossroad and the window you date him closed alone.
«Everything well, Angel?» it said doctor Berliz.
I felt him/it strong and clear.
«I would say of yes. I am alone disoriented.»
«You succeed in moving the legs?»
Strange question. To that the legs would have served me, closed there inside? I shook my tentacolinis, that obeyed with thoroughness but without giving me a perception of strength.
«Everything is all right» I reassured him/it.
«Test some footstep, Angel, tell me as you find yourself.»
I had just done him, the apprehension of the physician was almost ridiculous.
«Everything is all right» I confirmed.
«Lieutenant.?» he/she asked doctor Berliz.
«Phase of insertion completed» it said algid the astronaut. «I confirm functionality to the one hundred percent. Vehicle and r
eady systems.»
«Among how much.?»
«The window of throwing has just opened» it hastily said the lieutenant. «We have an useful interval of three minutes, then the discretion of the operation will be compromised.»
They owed to have hidden the propellers in the zone less frequented of the station and chosen the moment of my departure so that the probability that you/they noticed me it was least.
«Angel.» he/she called Berliz. «It starts the diagnostic one.»
There was a window of diagnostic, I had seen her. I opened him. I started the scanning of the system propulsivo. It was a fast thing, taken less than one minute. There was also a bar with my name above: it was, I thought, the tool of access to the functions of the vehicle. I tried to make to depart her/it in parallel to the before, but the two operations were in conflict and you/they had to have effected in sequence. I could finally activate the second phase of diagnostic, perhaps not even the last, but the bar of progression was slow: the useful window of throwing would be closed before.
«Lieutenant» I said. «To when the next window?»
«Uhm.» the hand reflected to pair of seconds. «A hour and minute trentacinque.»
«Too much» concluded. «This kind of jail opens me and you estranges from me.»
I felt someone whom noisily inhaled. It was Berliz.
«It completes the diagnostic one, Angel» it said the physician.
«No.»
«Insureds be reasonable that.»
«No.»
«Lieutenant, tells him him her» you/he/she said Berliz, shaken.
«Technically I am not able» it said the lieutenant. «It is the commander of his/her ship, you/he/she can do that of it that wants.»
«You allow to lose this antiquated ethical marinara, my goodness» it said Berliz lifting the voice.
«It will be antiquated for her» it beat acid the lieutenant.
The man moved some nets that blocked me the footstep and you/he/she made me the sign of green light. I turned on the motors. The environment slightly cleared around him.
«Thirty seconds to the closing of the window of throwing» it said the lieutenant.
I made him a paradoxical sign of regard with a braccino, then I picked up the limbs around my body.
I opened the display of the guide. You/they had been smart, making the very simple things: a red bracelet appeared in my visual field that individualized the direction of in demand propulsion, the data on my actual acceleration (almost zero) and those of the necessary acceleration. There was also the schedule esteemed of arrival on the surface Martian, in continuous increase since I was almost of it firm. I would have traveled for about one day. A good system for the one that was fasting of navigation in the space as me. The red bracelet didn't aim at Mars, obviously: Mars traveling would be moved, I would justly have had to aim to the place of the randez-vous, to the moment an anonymous tripletta of weak starlets. Definite not to worry too much me about the particular ones, I would have learned a lot of things during the journey; in the database, under the broken window, there were all the necessary instructions to optimize the run and to reduce the times of arrival.
«Angel!» it made doctor Berliz.
«We feel there later, doctor, I am a busy tantino» I cut short.
I extinguished the audio and I accelerated a little. Docilely, the motors pushed out me away from the station.
The lieutenant made me a rapid sign of regard.
Strange, you/he/she was never introduced, neither I had ever presented, even if obviously it knew my name to have felt him/it from the others.
Beh, had departed, with that excitement that luckily until then you/he/she had prevented me from thinking too much.