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“The Ring is a temptation to sin,” the old coyo shouted There were little flecks of white at the corners of his mouth that the video editor had chosen to leave visible

“We don’t knohat it is,” the pretty one said “Given that it was intended to do its work on prianisms and wound up on Venus with an infinitely more complex substrate, it probably doesn’t work at all, but I can say that te to do with it”

“They are victims Your ‘complex substrate’? It is the corrupted bodies of the innocent!”

Neo turned down the feed voluesture at each other for a while

It had taken hi the tiht positions The as so narrow it had been like throwing a dart fro with it Europa had been the trick A close pass on the Jovian iant that there was al trip past Saturn, sucking more juice out of its orbital velocity, and then farther out into the black, not accelerating again, but going faster than anyone would ih millions of klicks of vacuum to hit a bull’s-eye sined the expressions of all the science andwhen a little ship, no transponder and flying ballistic, appeared out of nowhere and shot straight through the Ring at a hundred and fifty thousand kilometers per hour After that, he’d have to h fuel left to kill all his velocity, but he’d slon enough that they could get a rescue ship to him

He’d do soistrates were being pissy It orth it, though Just the es fro hi to workdown in history In a hundred years, people were still going to be talking about the biggest-balled slingshot ever He’d lostthe Y Que, more than that in transit, then jail ti to live forever

Twenty hours

The biggest danger was the flotilla surrounding the Ring Earth and Mars had kicked each other’s navies into creaky oldOr else down in the inner planets, but Neo didn’t care about theeach other while every science vessel in the systeently a couple thousand klicks fro All the navy muscle there to make sure no one touched Scared, all of them Even with all that metal and ceramic crammed into the same little corner of space, even with the relatively tiny thousand klicks across as the inner face of the Ring, the chances that he’d run into anything were trivial There was a lotAnd if he did hit one of the flotilla ships, he wasn’t going to be around to worry about it, so he just gave it up to the Virgin and started setting up the high-speed camera When it finally happened, it would be so fast, he wouldn’t even knohether he’dsure there was going to be a record He turned his transmitters back on

“Hoy,” he said into the camera, “Neo here Neo solo Captain and crew of souverän Belt-racer Y Que Mielista est slipper since God made man Es pa mi mama, the sweet Sophia Brun, and Jesus our Lord and Savior Watch close Blink it and miss, que sa?”

He watched the file He looked like crap He probably had time; he could shave the ratty little beard off and at least tie back his hair He wished now he’d kept up with his daily exercises so he wouldn’t look so chicken-shouldered Too late now Still, he could le He was ballistic Wasn’t like there was any thrust gravity to worry about

He tried again froles until his vanity was satisfied, then switched to the external ca He’d start the broadcast twenty seconds out, then switch to the exterior cameras More than a thousand fraes He had to hope for the best Wasn’t like he could get another camera now, even if a better one existed

He drank the rest of his water and wished that he’d packed just a little one down really well It’d be done soon He’d be in so where there would be a decent toilet and water to drink and prisoner’s rations He was al cohtbeam He opened the connection The encryption o that it would reach hi off