He unbuckled his belt and took off his boots and tunic; all around
him, the others were doing the same. Sleep-gas didn't have to be
breathed; it could enter the nervous system by any orifice or lesion,
even a pore or a scratch. A spacesuit was the only protection. One of
the detectives helped him on with his metal and plastic armor; before
sealing his gauntlets, he reciprocated the assistance, then checked
the needler and blaster and the long batonlike ultrasonic paralyzer on
his belt and made sure that the radio and sound-phones in his helmet
were working. He hoped that the frantic efforts to gather several
thousand spacesuits onto Police Terminal from the Industrial and
Commercial and Interplanetary Sectors hadn't started rumors which had
gotten to the ears of some of the Organization's ubiquitous agents.
* * * * *
The country below was already turning to the parched browns and
yellows of the Abzar Sector. There was not another of the conveyers in
sight, but electronic and mechanical lag in the individual controls
and even the distance-difference between them and the central radio
control would have prevented them from going into transposition at the
same fractional microsecond.
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