The calendar said it was Spring on Earth when the radio was activated for a high-speed information and entertainment transmission.
The buzzer-flasher activated in the solarium at the same time.
Manet lay stretched out on his back, naked, in front of the transparent wall.
By rolling his eyes back in his head, Manet could see over a hedge of eyebrows for several hundred flat miles of white sand.
And several hundred miles of desert could see him.
For a moment he gloried in the blatant display of his flabby muscles and patchy sunburn.
Then he sighed, rolled over to his feet and started trudging toward Communication.
He padded down the rib-ridged matted corridor, taking his usual small pleasure in the kaleidoscopic effect of the spiraling reflections on the walls of the tubeway.
As he passed the File Room, he caught the sound of the pounding vibrations against the stoppered plug of the hatch.