NORTHWORLD

apparatus. The android reached around Hansen and guided the edges of the
bumble like a. couturier with a. swatch of cloth. "Now, sir," said the ugly android, "if
you"ll step carefully onto this...?" Hansen lifted his feet so that he was standing
on the doubled thickness of the bubble's lower edge. He understood, now. They were
blowing him a temporary atmosphere suit, a membrane ofpolarized permeability.
Oxygen could pass in, while carbon dioxide and other waste gasses passed out no
matter what the composition of the encircling atmosphere. A useful tool for
chemical emergencies or even fires, though the membrane didn't block heat.
Temporary suits could keep people alive in hard vacuum for as long as the oxygen
level within the bubble remained at a. breathable level. The hideous android
smiled as he continued to extrude the material. Hansen supposed the expression
was meant to be friendly. The handsome attendant took napalm-sized device from
his belt. He gathered the flattened bubble over Hansen's head in his slim hands
and touched the edges with the tool, mating them with affiant sputter. The seam
was a. quiver of light when Hansen moved and made the bubble tremble. His mind
told him falsely that his lungs had to struggle to breathe. He controlled his
expression, but he could feel his heart rate rise. "That's right, sir," said the ugly
attendant. "Now; if you'll just walk this way…?" The attendant had shut off his
apparatus. Now he gestured toward one of the archways. His skin had the utter
pallor that some androids tried to conceal with cosmetics; but whatever his skin
color, this creature couldn't have been anything that sprang from a human womb.
Hansen obeyed, walking deliberately so that the flexible membrane could billow
ahead of his motion. He could see and hear normally, except for a slight shimmer
in the air and the hint of distortion at the seam. The Commissioner's senses were
overloaded with hormones from the gunfight, from the capture that should have
been the crown of his career no matter how much longer he served the
Consensus— From all that had happened since. "Why is this happening to me?"