ref: b9fbb17c04e4ccfb2021dac818e514351ca8f646
dir: /troff/0610.ms/
.LP \& .ce .sp |4.25i .PP .ps 12 .CW ░ This time there would be no reprieve. Tom closed his eyes. And then he opened them again. But he was still there, aboard the ship. Still thinking about [redacted]. .PP .ps 12 He was pretty sure. .PP .ps 12 Flashed through the visible spectrum. Must be dark by now, but it was hard to tell, what with the dead visor and all. (Also, space.) He'd lost the little wrench he used to remove the now useless strip of plastic from his face. Nothing to be done, then, until the ship docked at DET\-86. .PP .ps 12 Mars. .PP .ps 12 Yes, it was going to be a long trip. He'd purposely locked the ship into a reduced velocity transit. Voice commands disabled. Without his visor there would be no way to alter course. It figured. It was very much like himself to change his mind only after it was too late for him to do anything about it. .PP .ps 12 Space, at this speed, was pretty boring. Forward in time, one pre\-defined unit of measurement after another. It was not at all apparent from riding in the cabin that he was even advancing toward his objective, whatever that might be. Each thought progressed a half\-step beyond the last, never quite arriving at its target, like some kind of dipshit's arrow, forever transiting a fraction of the measurable frontier. He was boring himself speechless. It was a dead\-end sentence. .PP .ps 12 [...] .PP .ps 12 It couldn't have been \fIthis\fR bad, back when he was in charge.