A hand smashed down on me, crushing me into the deck.
I thought: I must live. I can't die. I won't die!
I felt the spaceship rising. I felt her reaching for the stars. I was a part of her. I screamed with pain and exaltation. The hand pressed harder, choking the breath from me, stripping the plastiskin away in long, damp strips.
Darkness flickered before my eyes. I lay helpless and afraid and transfigured with a joy I had never known before.
Distorted, half-naked, I clung to life.
When I opened my eyes, they were all around me. They stood in a half-circle, trim, uniformed. Their smooth faces and cropped hair and softly molded bodies looked strange against the functional steel angularity of the astrogation blister.
I staggered to my feet, long strips of plastic flesh dangling from me.
The Queen was in space. I was in space, no longer Earthbound.
"Yes," I said, "I lived! Look at me!"