Operation Umanaq [antikvár]

An urgent bleep on orchestral A, hitting a harmonic of pulse rhythm, had Mark Chevron out of his deep foam sack reaching for his equipment belt in a coimt of three. He had moved halfway to the hatch, kicking himself into some kind of life before he was fully oriented to his cm:-rent position in space and time.Except for the gymbol-mounted bed and the brilliance of the stars through the curved observation port, he could have been in any small functional hotel room, but a glowing panel beside the door reminded him that outside was different in some key respects.It said baldly Life Support System and punched the message home with a small picture of a man in full space gear for the benefit of any nonreaders who might have strayed onto the set.Chevron veered off to the left, whipped open a locker and in ten seconds of concentrated effort converted himself into a bulky zombie.As the self-sealing casque snapped shut he was isolated in his own personal acoustic shell, and the bleeps cut off until he had switched in for sound. Then they were back, amplified if anything, and somehow more urgent as though they were beamed personally to him.Recall was total. He was where he had been for the last week, on Satellite N5, which was holding its carefully judged course along the fifth parallel, marking a feUow traveler on the other side of the equatorial line and watching the interests of Northern Hemisphere Government with unsleeping zeal.Also the bitter question mark was still there. As an