Harry Harrison Bill 07 The Final Incoherent Adventure

Odnośniki

[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

couple of minutes.
Bill had time to watch all this, because the MPs were having a lot of trouble
balancing him on the dolly;
he kept falling off, and only the thick layer of chains kept him from a
serious injury, which he would have appreciated a lot more if he weren't about
to die. But at last they got him propped up and started to wheel him out.
"Wait!" intoned the general. "Bill, would you like a chance to redeem
yourself?"
The assembled headquarters staff gasped in astonishment.
"Sure," Bill said. "Do I get to stay alive?"
"No."
"Do I get to stay alive a little longer?"
"Yes."
It was another easy choice. "What do I have to do?"
CHAPTER 24
While waiting for the final countdown, Bill ran over his equipment list one
more time.
Suicide pill check.
Teeny-tiny little radio transmitter disguised as a cockroach check.
file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/Nieuwe%20map/Harry%20Har...207%20-%20The%20Final%20I
ncoherent%20Adventure.htm (96 of 105)24-12-2006 1:57:24
Bill, the Galactic Hero The Final Incoherent Adventure
Yup, he had it all.
Now all he had to do was wait.
He didn't exactly know what he was waiting for. He'd never traveled by onager
before. It was something very old-fashioned, which probably meant that it was
usually reserved for the nobility, but so far it didn't feel all that
comfortable.
The MPs had removed the chains, which was more comfortable than wearing them,
and which certainly made a secret suicide mission a lot easier to accomplish.
But the MPs were still standing there, on the platform above him, with their
blasters aimed right at some of his favorite body parts.
Page 99
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Riding the onager, whatever it was, seemed to involve waiting in a big bowl.
He was lying in the bowl now. It also seemed to involve some risk; he was
wearing a backpack that was some kind of automatic device. The man in the gray
trench coat had told him that Bill didn't have to know how to work it, at any
rate.
So Bill just lay there and waited until an officer stuck his head up over the
edge of the big bowl and said, "Ready to go?"
"Ready for final countdown, sir!"
"Countdown? Oh, all right. Five four three two one, go!" He pulled his head
back and signaled to someone below. Bill heard an axe cut through something,
and then he was airborne.
Aside from the surprise of it, being flung from a catapult was interesting,
even pleasant. There was nothing between Bill and the pure experience of
flight, no vehicle, not even a protective outfit like the commando suits. It
was just Bill and the air, as he sped up over the battlefield among the
surviving birds.
And then, after a little while of soaring up, he reached the top of his arc
and started to go down.
For future reference, Bill noted that flapping his arms like a bird's wings
was of no use whatsoever. Nor was praying. He already knew that whimpering did
no good.
He began to wonder if the device in the backpack was a bomb or something. It
seemed like a lot of trouble to go to, just to make him dead. Maybe it was a
new experimental method of execution, as though the military needed one.
He had been instructed to curl up into a ball once he started descending, and
he actually remembered to do it once he'd exhausted his other options. It was
something about reducing his radar profile, so he'd look like just another
artillery shell. Bill didn't think it would do much for his chances for
survival, but they were so close to nil that it didn't make any difference.
While he was curled into the fetal position anyway, he stuck his thumb in his
mouth too, for old times' sake. It had been reassuring once.
This time it nearly cost him his front teeth.
A few feet from the ground (as far as he could tell with his eyes squeezed
shut), there was a singularly unpleasant crunching-wrenching sensation in his
back. He came to a sudden stop.
In a few tiny fractions of a second, the antigravity generator in the pack
stopped Bill in mid-plummet;
fireworks blew out the back of the pack, simulating the landing of a shell in
a small fireworks depot. At the same time the straps of the pack retracted,
dropping Bill the last ten feet to the ground. Its mission accomplished, the
pack gently lowered itself to the field, where tiny automatic shovels popped
out and quickly buried it.
Bill pulled himself up, brushed off the worst of the mud, and looked around.
It seemed that no one had noticed his arrival. He threw out the suicide pill
and checked the bug. It still looked like a cockroach; its little legs and
antennae worked away inside its glass tube.
Now he had to figure out where he was. The little gray man had assured Bill
that he would land
file:///K|/eMule/Incoming/Nieuwe%20map/Harry%20Har...207%20-%20The%20Final%20I
ncoherent%20Adventure.htm (97 of 105)24-12-2006 1:57:24
Bill, the Galactic Hero The Final Incoherent Adventure somewhere near the
Eyerackian headquarters, where he was supposed to plant the tiny robot
transmitter.
He looked carefully around. There was an opening in the ground, not far away, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

zanotowane.pl

doc.pisz.pl

pdf.pisz.pl

angamoss.xlx.pl