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satisfaction. I thought about the possibility quite often."
"No & what I mean is & I was raped once myself." His voice broke. "Eighty-two
years ago. Sometimes it bothers me that he must be dead by now. So I'll never
be able to & punish him. To kill him. That's all
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I meant by saying I understand."
"Oh." It must have been terrible, against your will. Dallas and I had used
that channel, exploring, but gently, slowly. My body was overcome with the
sweetness of the memory of it, and trying to imagine what it felt like to
Dallas, and I had to concentrate on listening:
"It hasn't been easy, watching you for two weeks, thinking about you. Even for
a Stileman, your body is remarkably flawless."
Brand-new, I almost said.
He blushed. "I don't suppose there's any possibility."
The man really was a born romantic. "None. Nobody but Dallas."
"That's what I thought." Was there a note of relief in his voice? "But I'm
afraid we will be forced into some intimacy. I don't have anything like
handcuffs or rope. I can't leave you here alone while I use the head. You'll
have to come with me."
"That's ridiculous."
"I assure you I don't care for the idea myself. But if you were to take
control of the ship while I was
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BUYING TIME - Joe Haldeman indisposed, you could kill me with a six-gee burst
of acceleration, or kill us both by opening the air lock."
"I wouldn't do either. You may have my word."
"Those are my orders. If Murray were still alive, he could watch you."
"You'll have to carry me."
"That's all right. You're weightless." He snatched my wrist and I tried to pry
his fingers away; but it was impossible; I was still weak as a child. "Don't
resist. I'll have to shoot you."
He let go, satisfied. But it occurred to me that I was a lot less weak than I
should have been, after two weeks of total flaccidity. When I first woke up, I
could hardly raise my hands to hold a drink, even without fighting gravity.
The Coke, of course. I was burning all that sugar. It's as simple as C H O +
6O
6
12
6
2
6CO + 6H O +
2
2
energy; now where did that come from? Biology class in ginnasio, I guess, but
I must have forgotten that long before the turn of the century.
But no, it's not that simple, I recalled from somewhere, nowhere; it's not as
if your stomach were a furnace that burned glucose and turned it into energy.
The Coke goes down into the small intestine, is converted into
monosaccharides, wanders to the liver, goes through glycogenesis.
I could pin that down. It was 1997, eighty-four years ago, when I first found
out I had cancer and read about the body compulsively for months.
It didn't really matter where it was coming from; how it was being processed.
I could feel strength growing in me like a vessel filling. "Could I have
something to eat?"
"In a minute. First we have to go to the head."
He grabbed my wrist lightly and we started floating aft. He wasn't looking at
me. Now or never. I saw an opening and, with a speed that surprised me,
grabbed the pistol from his waistband, then pushed it against his abdomen and
pulled the trigger!
Nothing happened.
He casually twisted the gun out of my hand and pushed me away. Smiling, he
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took a dart out of his jacket pocket. "Safety first." He loaded it and I
closed my eyes.
I heard the gun fire, a quiet snap, but didn't feel anything. When I heard the
door to the head, I cautiously opened my eyes. The dart was caught in the
loose folds of paper between my breasts.
I stifled the impulse to rush to the controls and injure or kill him with a
burst of acceleration, as he'd
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BUYING TIME - Joe Haldeman said. Morality aside, I might not be able to figure
out the unfamiliar panel before he came out. Instead, I
tore the orange string off the dart and pressed it into the paper fabric; it
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