Passage at Arms Read Online Free Page A

sheen as the walls speed by. The cable itself has optical fiber wound in. That sheds what little light there is.
    This is a claustrophobic setting. The shaft is only slightly more than a meter in diameter.
    I can just make out Yanevich below me. If I look up I can see the Commander's grin coming after me. He has rolled so he's coming along facedown. He's laughing at some hilarious joke, and I'm afraid the joke is me. He shouts, "You puke in here and I'll make you walk home from three lights out. Get ready to change cables. Damn it! Don't look at me. Watch where you're going."
    I look down as Yanevich begins heaving himself along. He pumps the cable, falls free, pumps the cable again, gaining speed. He seizes the faster cable and pulls away into the darkness.
    I survive the exchange through the intercession of a tapered idiot fitting. It strips my death grip from the slow cable and transfers it to the faster one. The faster cable gives me a big yank and nearly turns me facedown. Now I know why Yanevich speeded himself up.
    "Damned dangerous," I shout up the shaft. The Commander grins.
    From below, the First Watch Officer shouts, "Grab your balls. We'll be hauling ass in a couple minutes."
    I picture myself hurtling down this tube like a too-small ball in an ancient muzzle-loader, rickety-rackety from wall to wall. I feel an intense urge to scream, but I'm not going to satisfy their sadism. I have a suspicion that's what they're waiting for. It would make their day.
    I suddenly realize that getting tangled in the cable is the real danger here. Envisioning that peril helps silence the howling ape's instinctive fear of falling.
    "Shift coming up."
    I try to imitate Yanevich this time. My effort earns its inevitable reward: I manage to get myself turned sideways. I can't find the cable again.
    "Whoa!" the Commander shouts. "Don't flail around." He shoves down on the top of my head, mashing my cap. Yanevich slides up out of the darkness and snags my right ankle. They turn me. "Get a hold. Carefully."
    The real trick is to avoid getting excited. I feel cocky when we hit bottom. I've figured it out.
    I can keep up with die best of them. "There must be a better way."
    The Commander's grin is bigger than ever. "There is. But it's no fun. All you do is climb onto a bus and ride down. And I that's so boring." He indicated cars unloading passengers along a wall a hundred meters away. People and bags are floating around like drunken pigeons. Some are our men, some the women who shared our lifter.
    "You prime son of a bitch."
    "Now, now. You said you wanted to see it all." He's still grinning. I want to crack him one and push that grin around sideways. Bet they pull this one on all the new meat. He explains that the cable system is a carryover from TerVeen's industrial days. Back then the cables carried highspeed freight capsules.
    I can't pop a superior in the snot locker, so I try stomping angrily instead. The result is predictable. There is no gravity. Of course. I flail around for a handhold, which only makes matters worse. In seconds I put on an admirable combination of pitch, roll, and yaw.
    "Thought you said he was a veteran," Yanevich observes laconically. Embarrassed, I get hold of myself.
    "See, you haven't forgotten everything," the Commander says.
    "I'll get it back. Am I in for the whole new-fish routine?" "Not after we're aboard. There's no horseplay aboard a Climber." He's dreadfully serious. Almost comically so.
    There'll be no chance to get even. Grimacing, I let him tug me down so we can begin the next phase of our odyssey.
    Westhause continues to explain. "What they did was drill the tunnels parallel to TerVeen's long axis. They were cutting the third one when the war started. They were supposed to mine outward from the middle when that was finished. The living quarters were tapped in back then, too. For the miners. It was all big news when I was a kid. Eventually they would've mined the thing hollow and put some spin on