Lesser Gods Read Online Free PDF Page B

enjoying the centrifugal artificial gravity needed to maintain their health.
    I aligned myself with the central shaft and floated along the long ladder leading toward the inner hub of the ship, shedding the last vestiges of gravity with each rung I passed until I was all but weightless, only the micro-G forces of the mass around me having any say in the matter, and for all practical purposes non-existent.
    Once at the hub I — my mechanical self — kicked into another short flight, traveling through the narrow passageway 30 meters before grabbing a handhold to pull myself toward my work station.
    “Glad you could grace us with your presence,” the foreman groused as I neared the nose of the spinning spacecraft. Like the rest of us, he had a human face but lacked an articulated mouth, his words instead being transferred directly into my skull.
    “Hey, I have fifteen seconds to spare,” I quipped, knowing it would irritate him. There was something about the foreman that got under my skin and I took every chance I got to irk him, even though doing so wasn’t too bright.
    The foreman snorted as I slammed the safety hatch shut behind me and pulled my weightless body onto the worn work couch in the center of the cramped quarters. The warning gong clanged just as I finished strapping myself in.
    I stared into the blackness beyond the porthole. Only four inches of transparent quartz stood between me and a sudden, airless death. Well, not really, I reminded myself. Since my mechanical body didn’t need air, the protection of the glass was mostly illusionary. In fact Sam had heard we worked in an airless environment. I don’t know if that was true or not, but it made sense in terms of less corrosion and wear and tear on our mechanical bodies. On the other hand, with the out-gassing problems plastics have in a vacuum…. Well, bottom line was none of us knew if we were working in air or not, and it didn’t really make any difference to us because our unconscious bodies were alive and breathing air millions of miles away.
    But the cold glare of the distant stars seemed real enough, and reminded me that if something went wrong, it was nice to know that the real me was safe back on Earth out of harm’s way, even though it felt like I was out here in space right at the moment.
    “One minute,” the foreman’s voice warned. If I’d had lungs, I would have taken a deep breath, ready for the release of our probes. I adjusted the light in my cubical so it was dark, giving a clear view of stars beyond the portal in front of me. Then I flicked at the dust mote that floated between me and the glass.
    “Ten seconds until launch,” the foreman warned. He counted off the seconds and they yelled, “Launch!”
    The spaceship’s deck rattled almost imperceptibly as our mining probes left their tubes. I eased my joystick forward and watched my probe race from the ship, propelled by its impulse rockets. Unlike the other probes that moved smoothly, mine jerked along, betraying my lack of experience. Once my probe had cleared the others flanking it, I shifted my view from the port to the TV camera on the probe’s nose.
    My probe on course, I slipped my control from my android remote hand to that of the claw on the probe, again having a momentary feeling of being in two places at once before my hand became that of the probe’s. I flexed my new fingers, rotating the claw to be sure it was functioning properly, then I double checked my speed and studied the radar display superimposed in my view.
    My speed was a little low, so I kicked a rocket control for a brief correction and repositioned, putting it on a course that would overtake a blip that hadn’t yet been designated by one of my fellow miners. Once my target was marked in the main computer, I picked secondary targets that I could quickly scoop up once I captured the main target.
    “Swarm’s coming up,” the foreman warned needlessly as our probes overtook the tiny asteroids and