（外文电子版资料）Robert J. Sawyer - Above It All.pdf

file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Robert%20J.%20Sawyer%20-%20Above%20It%20All.txt Above It All by Robert J. Sawyer Copyright 漏 1996 by Robert J. Sawyer All Rights Reserved First published in the anthology Dantes Disciples, edited by Peter Crowther and Edward E. Kramer (White Wolf, February 1996). Winner of the CompuServe Science Fiction and Fantasy Forums Sixth Annual HOMer Award for Best Short Story of the Year. Rhymes with fear. The words echoed in Colonel Paul Rackhams head as he floated in Discoverys airlock, the bulky Manned Maneuvering Unit clamped to his back. Air was being pumped out; cold vacuum was forming around him. Rhymes with fear. He should have said no, should have let McGovern or one of the others take the spacewalk instead. But Houston had suggested that Rackham do it, and to demure hed have needed to state a reason. Just a dead body, he told himself. Nothing to be afraid of. There was a time when a military man couldnt have avoided seeing death -- but Rackham had just been finishing high school during Desert Storm. Sure, as a test pilot, hed watched colleagues die in crashes, but hed never actually seen the bodies. And when his mother passed on, shed had a closed casket. His choice, that, made without hesitation the moment the funeral director had asked him -- his father, still in a nursing home, had been in no condition to make the arrangements. Rackham was wearing liquid-cooling long johns beneath his spacesuit, tubes circulating water around him to remove excess body heat. He shuddered, and the tubes moved in unison, like a hundred serpents writhing. He checked the barometer, saw that the locks pressure had dropped below 0.2 psi -- just a trace of atmosphere left. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to calm himself, then reached out a gloved hand and turned the actuator