dark cavern. Then up from death I rose to avenge. If you don’t die for your murders now, I meet you. Meet you at Tau Ceti, June Twenty-Two Twenty-Three. Give you plenty, plenty of time. Complete your death tour-I’ll be following. Every time I die, I grow stronger. Death, Wanderer, I am Death-” The image ended suddenly.
“We transferred just then.”
“He’s out of his mind. Mad Wizard!” The computer made no reply, so Virgil asked, “Was there anything else?”
“No.”
“What year is it now?”
“Approximately the summer of Twenty-One Fifty-Two. Mid-July.”
“No.”
“What?”
“After sustaining severe damage to my neural net, I was recircuited and the tour program adherence command was defeated.”
Virgil rolled over and stared at the speaker grill behind him. “Then calculate a course back. What’re you waiting for?”
“I think we should wait until you have your hand back.”
“What do you mean?”
“In the lower level of the medical bay is the cloning unit. It is currently growing a cell sample, trimming away unnecessary portions, and your left hand-a new one-will be ready in about three months. I have it under intensive forced generation, since we don’t care about the brain or any other organs.”
“I don’t have three months, I don’t care about my hand. I want-want-”
He touched his lower lip with his right hand and bent it inward so that it rubbed against his teeth. He slid the fold of skin back and forth several times, thinking, then let go of it to speak.
“You’re saying there’s no limit on my individual transfers now?”
“None.”
“Can the cloning unit be disconnected from the medical bay and the computer?”
“It has emergency modular functioning; it can be.”
“Can it be fitted into a lifeboat and set adrift?”
“Yes.”
He sat up in the bed, fighting the forces that doubled his vision. “Then let’s put it in, transfer out a distance of six light weeks and transfer back.”
Silent for a moment, the computer replied, “Acceptable. When you have recovered.”
“I’m recovered.” He stripped the sheets from the bed to stand. “And uncovered. Let’s go.” Rising so quickly in the half-gravity acceleration was enough to pull him to the deck in a faint. He bounced lightly once and lay still. If the computer could have cursed, it would have.
He awoke, rested and refreshed.
“My name is Virgil Grissom Kinney. Wake up, Ben!” He tried to slap his chest, but only one hand hit. The stump of the other thumped as on a watermelon. “I’m ready to go.”
“You should be. You’ve slept for over fourteen hours. The lifeship has been powered to full capacity, the cloning tank and peripherals have been fitted out for independent functioning, and your trunks have been washed.”
Virgil slid out of the bed in one motion, then slowed and lowered his feet to the deck, standing up with easy care. He reached for his trunks and realized he still had no left hand.
Picking them up in his right hand, he turned to the speaker and asked, “Can you cut the acceleration for a moment?” He listened for the sudden silence that accompanied the cessation of gravity.
“How’s the rest of the ship?”
“I have put power on in the passages to the medical bay and the lifeship-temperature and pressure normal. All other sections are losing heat at a rate of three degrees temperature per hour.”
Virgil headed toward the exit. “Meet you in the bay.” He kicked down one level to examine the cloning unit.
Robots had disconnected the cloning unit from the bulkhead. Virgil pushed it slowly toward the hatchway, weightlessness making it easier for him to jockey the parcel about. In the curving corridor, he gave the unit a strong shove, then walked along the deckplates with the mass of aluminum and electronics over his head, pushing it away from the walls, bending its trajectory until he reached the other side of Ring One.
The steel cylinders fit easily into the hold of the lifeship, so he fastened the unit to one wall, flipped on the ship’s power switches, flitted out, and sealed it up.
“How’s she check?” he asked, floating out of the airlock and into the observation booth.
“Ready to cast off.”
“Do it,” The air cycled out of the lock and the doors slid open.
The command chair in the superstructure was as he had left it. He strapped in.
“I want the ship to be on full alert and at battle readiness both times we transfer. The instant we return here, we locate the lifeship, bring it onboard, and transfer to one of the habitable planet’s vicinities. Got it?”
The computer answered, “I’d thought of all that already. Stand by to transfer.”
“Do you really need me to press the button? You can transfer without my help, can’t you?”
“Yes. However, the construction plans include it as a check on the pilot. To let me know you’re still there.”
“Transfer,” Virgil said, folding his arms.
“Stand by-transferring.”
PROGRESS REPORT: DAY 17 AREA: MEDICAL
SUBJECT IN SECOND WEEK OF COMA.
LEFT HAND GRAFT SUCCESSFUL, NO COMPLICATIONS, NOT TO BE CONSIDERED CAUSE OF COMATOSE STATE.
PULSE: 48/MIN-STEADY BLOOD PRESSURE: 87/55/53 MMHG-STEADY
CORE BODY TEMP: 36.1°C-STEADY
MASS: 63.5 KG-DROPPING
EEG: RANDOM ACTIVITY
