1
Scratch Monkey
by Charles Stross
(c) 1988-93 Charles Stross
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/
1: Year Zero Man
2: In the Duat
3: War Crimes
4: Will you still love me
5: Escape
Note: Bits of this novel may offend you. If that is the case, please remember that there's an "off" switch attached: if you don't like it, don't read it. Please also remember that this is a work of fiction. Attitudes, beliefs, and actions espoused in it bear no relation to reality whatsover.
1: Year Zero Man
As I fasten my crash webbing Sareena looks at me and shakes her head. "What is it?" I ask. She pauses as she pre-checks the heat shield: she looks embarrassed.
"Do you have any last wishes?" she asks, stumbling over her words. "I mean, do you want me to tell anyone if you...?"
I grin up at her humourlessly. She's little more than a shadow cast by the glare of the floodlights, so I can't see her expression. "What do you think?" I ask, hoping for something to distract me from what's about to happen.
She straightens up and checks over the ejection rail another time. It's ancient, a history book nightmare. Everything on this station is ancient: the planetary colony abandoned space travel, along with most everything else, when they cut themselves off from contact centuries ago. Cold and dark, the station was mothballed for centuries, until the we beamed in and reactivated it. Now it has new owners, and a very different purpose to the one it was designed for. "Okay," she says calmly. "So if you don't come back, you don't want anyone to cry ..."