Death Sentence Read Online Free PDF

arms and four legs and eyes in the back of his head. But he tried. Believe me, you ought to be glad they don't expect us to dress like them. Anyway, I'll be next door in the women's tailor shop. I'll be as quick as I can. Have fun."
     

     
    If there was in fact a male shopping aversion gene, forty-five minutes later, Jamie was sure he had it. Not that he had done any actual shopping, in the sense of browsing or selecting or even looking. Instead the staff in the clothier's section had treated him like a poorly designed tailor's dummy, prying him in and out of check-fit garments, slipping shirts and jackets and shoes on and off him with a complete disregard for whether or not he was cooperating. They might not have been pleasant, but they were at least efficient, and they ushered him firmly out of the shop almost before he knew what was happening. He was still carrying nothing but his duffel bag, but the tailor shop manager assured him that everything that had been selected for him would be aboard ship by the time they boosted.
    Hannah wasn't there when he came out. He checked the time. Roughly ninety-five minutes until they were cleared to boost--and Commander Kelly would not be much interested in the reason why if they were still on-station in ninety-six minutes. He decided to give Hannah five minutes, then head for the ship. But it only took two minutes of cooling his heels to realize why the time between briefing and boost was so short. It allowed less time for worrying.
    By the start of the fourth minute, Jamie was twitchy enough to jump out of his skin. Hannah emerged, looking calm and self-possessed, moving at a pace that could only be described as leisurely. "So," she said, coolly glancing at her wrist display, "it looks like we've got a little time to kill. Let's go see how they're coming on the ship."
    She walked away, without looking back to see if he was coming. Jamie stepped lively to catch up, not sure if he wanted to yell at Hannah for teasing him or laugh at himself for worrying too much. Probably Hannah had set the whole prank up to get his mind off larger worries. He needed to get the big problems out of his head, if only so he could concentrate on sweating the small stuff.
    After all, it was the small stuff that was going to keep them alive--or kill them, if they got it wrong.
    He hurried after her.

FOUR
    DOWN IS UP
    Hannah looked out the viewport of BSI HQ's Main Docking Complex and at the pair of fat cones, docked nose to nose, that hung there in the darkness. A system of bracing pylons held the two little ships firmly to the station, and an access tunnel led from the side air lock of the closer vehicle back toward the station. A tug was coming into view, carrying a booster unit that would add its thrust to the Sholto 's own propulsion system in order to compensate for the doubled weight of the combined vehicle. Without the booster, the time needed to reach their transit point out of the Center System would have been doubled--and a burn that long would have put dangerous strains on the little ship's own propulsion system.
    Another tug was attaching six strain-relief cables between the two vehicles. Sherlock -class ships were fitted with a variety of hold-down points--recessed heavy-duty metal rings to which cables could be attached. The hold-downs were normally used to lock the little ships in place when they were being carried on or in larger vehicles. On this mission, they were seeing a different use. One set of six hold-downs was placed around the circumference of each of the cone-shaped ships about halfway up. Cables were being strung between the two ships, each cable strung from a hold-down on one ship to the corresponding hold-down on the other, then pulled taut.
    The cabling was one of about a half dozen hastily improvised fixes being done on the ships. It was a lash-up, a crude sort of insurance policy against the fact that, while the Sherlock -class ships were designed to travel while docked