IN THE CARDS: Demanding Books on Fiction : GeneralFiction : ClassicsFiction : Fantasy : Action & Adventure: IN THE CARDS
GEORGE O. SMITH
BEYOND BOOKS HUB · AI-narrated by Madison (from Google)
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1 hr 6 min
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The masked man crept down the corridor stealthily. It was quite dark in the hallway but he knew that it was a synthetic darkness, a matter of temporal convenience, for on a spaceship, time is regulated by the Terran daily cycle of twenty-four hours. On spacecraft the passenger-sections observe a strict twelve-hour division between sheer brilliance and utter darkness. He estimated that it was a full two hours before light-time, which meant that those couples who preferred to sit and hold hands whilst staring at the rather over-stable aspect of the sky were by now bedded down and asleep. Even so the masked man understood that with such it was not the sky that was appealing, and that under such circumstances time was a minor and often disregarded item. So he went carefully just in case he should happen upon such. He was lucky. There were no couples immersed in one another's dreams and so the masked man went all the way from the auxiliary spacelock near the bottom to the "B" deck, just below the rounded hemisphere of seamless plastiglass that domed the top of the spacecraft. He entered the corridor that led to the staterooms and, by the dim hall lights, found the room he sought. The lock was obviously intended to keep out only honest men and the door was of the same manufacture. He took a tiny fountain-pen-sized implement from a loop in his belt and applied the business end to the door. There was neither sound nor light. Silently the thing worked and it completely removed a sliver ten-thousandths of an inch wide as he moved the tiny beam in a careless square around the lock. He grasped the knob in his hand as he completed the cut. That way it would not drop to the floor and make an unwanted racket. Shoving the door open gently, he entered and closed it behind him. He took a moment to replace the square of aluminum with the lock and, with a couple of quick motions, he welded the square back in place. An experienced welder would have called the job 'buttering' because the patch was held by only two minute battens of welded metal. It could be broken out with a single twist of the hand...
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