（外文电子版资料）Charles Stross - Year zero.pdf

1: Year Zero Man 1: Year Zero Man [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ] 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. Shes little more than a shadow cast by the glare of the floodlights, so I cant see her expression. What do you think? I ask, hoping for something to distract me from whats about to happen. She straightens up and checks over the ejection rail another time. Its 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 dont come back, you dont want anyone to cry ... Not for me, I say, jerking a thumb over my shoulder towards the sealed airlock bay doors, amber lights strobing across the danger zone to indicate pressure integrity. But if I dont come back, you can cry for the natives. Nobody else will. Yeah, well. Looks like the heat shields good for one more trip, at least. She finishes with her handheld scanner and hooks it to her utility belt, then turns and waves at the redlit Launch Control room, high among the skeletal girders above us. Does your your life support integrity check out? Check. A green helix coils slowly in the bottom left corner of my visual field, spiralling down the status reading on my suit; more head-up displa