Stearn tried to catch his breath while he waited in the embrace of the couchbeast. He had rushed to secure his tools and the damaged equipment, filling his stikfast palettes, and kicked to secure himself. He had thought he had worked to the last second before the bounce, but here he was, waiting. What was it already? Five seconds? Ten?



He had the bridge displays back on-line. The area around the immediate deck blazed with charged plasma, and the ceiling displayed a violet sky.



He checked his eyeclock again. Only six seconds had passed. "Shit," he said, grinning.



Then he felt a tug, a slight one, far less than a gravity. Was that it? Papa had spooked him into thinking it would be worse. Was the ship's brain still seriously malfunctioning?



Then the hand of god himself smashed into Stearn, pressing him into the hugging beast. His cheeks and chest flattened, and his breath whooshed from him. His wrist ached suddenly, and it was all he could do to twist it into more comfortable position.



The fire rose with them, briefly, then fell away. Stearn was a piece of shrapnel riding the shockwave of an explosion. He was a human cannonball. He was a Sirian photovore in its birth launch.



God eased up on him, and Stearn floated from the couchbeast. The poor thing was stinking sweaty and moaning quietly. Bruises splotched its hide. Stearn's wrist ached, and his lower back as well.



"That was fun," he said, listening to the distant, insulated pops of the cooling hull. "Can't wait to do it again!"