(2008) Mister Roberts Read Online Free

commissars
endlessly stated, and he had devised a desperate plan not to.
    A power
surge from a missile strike caused an overload that exploded his bank of instruments,
a flying shard of metal slashed him across his body, creating a gaping wound.
Quickly, and without a backwards glance, he abandoned his post.
    Clutching
his side the alien began to shuffle into the fume-filled corridor, towards the
outer hull of the ship some two kilometres away.
    Over
the following hour the deserter journeyed, with determination and stealth, the
entire length of the crippled battlestar. He sped along moving walkways, he
hissed from one end of antigravity chutes to the other, his molecules were
disassembled then reconstituted as he teleported short distances and finally he
ran down some stairs. At last he fetched up at a door in a distant corridor
marked PLANETARY EXPLORATION SUITS. AUTHORISED ENTRY ONLY. After a quick,
cautious look around, the alien slid inside.
    The
room he’d entered was bathed in a tranquil blue light and though it
occasionally shook with the nearby impact of incoming missiles he found it
strangely peaceful. As his eyesight adjusted to the gloom the alien saw far
into the distance row upon row of bulky forms, each standing on its own plinth.
These were the Planetary Exploration Suits. In essence, each outfit was a
full-sized, fully powered replica of the inhabitants of various worlds that the
Empire wished to explore without alerting the native population — a sort of
cross between a gorilla suit, a deep-sea diver’s outfit and a hollow cyborg.
Through an access panel in the rear of each costume its operator could climb
inside and once installed was able to activate it, to lift things and move
about.
    The
alien deserter passed between the racks of lifeless forms, through their open
access panels he occasionally caught a gleam of metal, a brief sight of
glistening rods and highly polished swivel joints and a shadowy suggestion of
inert dials and screens. The deserter knew he didn’t have much time, the
faraway screaming of the ship’s engines told him the end couldn’t be long in
coming, but he also knew panic wouldn’t help so he tried to remain calm. The
alien was looking for one particular suit. As he searched he passed — amongst
others — a large tentacled beast, a three-metre high tusked, bear-like animal,
and an insectoid creature with enormous crab-like claws before he came to the
entity he was looking for.
    This
Planetary Exploration Suit was the perfect replica of a member of the dominant
species on the primitive planet above which the battle was now being fought. It
stood in its storage tube immobile and lifeless — the figure of a big,
muscular, earth man in his mid-forties. Its hair was deep black, brushed back
from a high, intelligent forehead, its skin lightly tinged with olive. In the
days to come, though everybody was able to agree that as a whole his features were
broad and handsome, nobody was able to agree on greater detail, as if to each
of them he presented a different face.
    The man
was dressed in a smart dark suit of a lightweight material, a white shirt and
dark tie, such as might have been worn on earth by a man who frequented jazz
clubs in Montmartre forty years ago — the time of the aliens’ last visit to the
earth.
    The
deserter pressed a button at the foot of the tube and with a hiss the glass
cover rose into the roof. Looking round one last time he began to climb inside
the humanoid. First he wriggled his legs into its legs then slipped his arms
into its arms, squirmed his entire body inside the machine and finally fitted
his head into a head-shaped space at the top of the man’s chest. Once he was
completely inside, the access panel closed with a snap and the interior of the
machine burst into life. In front of his eyes a full-colour screen lit up, on
which were displayed the exterior view, as seen through the camera eyes of the
robot and grouped around the edges (like a head-up