"No time for that," the quadpilot interrupted. "Unclinch in
ninety-three seconds. He's from GG about the Hog. Long, Kinlock. I'll
see you in 264 hours." He urged us through the valves.
On the first deck of the shuttle, I swallowed another SS pill. I was
unaccustomed to windows in spacecraft. Eleven hundred kilometers below
lay Planet Maggie, of Joe's Sun, with the surface partly in darkness.
The awesome, greenish convolutions of the adjacent dark nebula filled
much of the sky as if churning forward to engulf both planet and
spaceships.
Ypsilanti swung to the controls. I secured my baggage in the racks and
clutched a couch. With horror, I saw that the shuttle's brain had been
removed.