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“Change the gradient,” Prax said “How long would it take to put together a container with some unshielded radioisotopes?”
“Depends, Doc,” A through froht now,” Prax said
“Bait,” Nao hi that looks like better food and lure that thing out the door with it”
“I just said that Didn’t I just say that?” Prax asked
“Not exactly, no,” Nao a cloud of s Prax wasn’t sure, because the resolution of the iood, but it see He wondered how much the constraints placed on the proto into account Regenerative processes were a great opportunity for constraining systeone ardless,” Prax said, “I think we should probably hurry”
The plan was sio bay and free the captain as soon as the bay doors had shut behind the intruder Naoer the doors to close the one after the radioactive bait Alex would fire the engines as soon as doing so wouldn’t kill the captain And the bait—a half-kilo cylinder with a thin case of lead foil to keep it froh thecrewlove of the environh his mind
“Maybe it would be better if Amos did this part,” Prax said “I’ve never actually done any extravehicular anything before”
“Sorry, Doc I’ve got a ninety-kilo captain to haul,” Amos said
“Couldn’t we autoentleness of the syllable carried the weight of a thousand get-your-ass-out-theres Prax checked the seals on his suit one ood The suit wasGanymede It enty-five meters froo bay doors at the extreo all the way there He tested the radio tether to
That was another interesting question Was the radio-ja effect a natural output of the enerated biologically Would the effect end when the monster left the ship? When it was burned up by the exhaust?
“Prax,” Nao out”
The outer airlock door cycled open His first impulse was to push out into the darkness the way he would into a large roo as ainst the skin of the ship as humanly possible Prax took the bait in one hand and used the toe rings to lift hi The Rocinante was a raft of metal and paint on an ocean More than an ocean The stars wrapped around him in all directions, the nearest ones hundreds of lifetimes away, and thenon a tiny little asteroid orup at a too-wide sky flipped and he was at the top of the universe, looking down into an abyss without end It was like a visual illusion flipping between a vase and then two faces, then back again at the speed of perception Prax grinned up, spreading his arness even as the first taste of nausea crawled up the back of his tongue He’d read accounts of extravehicular euphoria, but the experience was unlike anything he’d iht of infinite stars, and he was a speck of dust on a speck of dust, clipped by hisboots to the body of a ship unthinkably more powerful than himself, and unimportant before the face of the abyss His suit’s speakers crackled with background radiation from the birth of the universe, and eerie voices whispered in the static